HISTORY 


UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA, 


UNDER  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


BY 


UNIVERSITY 


1783-1801. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  : 
W.  H.  &  O.   II.   MORRISON. 

1880. 


COPYRIGHT,  1880, 
BY  JAMES  SCHOOLER. 

Bights  of  Translation  and  Abridgment  reserved. 


SHERMAN  A  CO.,  PRINTERS, 
PHILADELPHIA. 


PREFACE. 


To  write,  without  fear  or  favor,  a  History  of  the  United  States 
under  the  Constitution  has  long  been  my  cherished  wish.  For 
more  than  fifteen  years  past  I  have,  as  a  diversion  from  graver 
professional  tasks,  pursued  special  studies  for  that  period  which 
ends  with  the  War  of  1812  ;  and  it  is  ten  years  ago  this  day  since 
I  laid  aside  the  first  draft  of  the  Introductory  Chapter  contained 
in  the  present  volume  to  fulfil  more  pressing  literary  engage 
ments  of  another  character. 

These  statements,  which  the  reader  may  think  trivial,  I  make 
in  order  to  convince  him  that  the  present  work  has  not  been  un 
dertaken  hastily  nor  without  serious  preparation.  There  is  no 
narrative  in  existence  from  which  one  may  safely  gather  the  later 
record  of  our  country's  career  ;  no  narrative,  I  mean,  of  ample  his 
torical  scope,  prepared  from  a  critical  and  minute  study  of  the 
copious  materials  of  the  past.  The  venerable  Mr.  Bancroft's  mas 
terly  achievements  as  the  historian  of  America  stop  short  of  the 
constitutional  era  ;  it  is  our  colonial  and  revolutionary  periods 
alone  that  he  has  made  his  own.  We  can  find  but  one  work,  that 
of  Mr.  Hildreth,  which  shows  the  diligent  research  of  a  scholar 
among  the  accumulated  records  of  1783-1817,  a  work  of  whose 
high  merits  as  to  the  three  final  volumes  I  may  be  permitted  to 
speak  after  a  minute  comparison  of  almost  every  page  with  au 
thentic  materials  elsewhere  gathered  ;  yet  Mr.  Hildreth  wrote 
more  than  thirty  years  ago,  with  the  horizon  lines  of  his  generation. 
Since  that  time  the  lives  and  writings  of  Hamilton,  the  Adamses, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe  (whose  private  papers  at  the  State 
Department  are  not  yet  printed),  Pickering,  Cabot,  Gallatin,  and 
other  early  leaders  of  our  constitutional  era,  not  excepting  Wash 
ington  himself,  have  been  far  more  fully  explored,  while  Gris- 
wold,  Lossing,  Westcott,  and  others,  give  us  many  new  picturesque 


IV  PEEFACE. 

details  of  the  early  administrations,  without  by  any  means  ex 
hausting  the  supply.  While  confirming  Mr.  Hildreth's  accuracy, 
therefore,  in  general  details,  I  am  constrained  to  differ  from  him 
in  many  particulars,  and  most  widely  as  to  estimates  of  our  po 
litical  leaders  and  their  motives;  the  plan,  too,  the  expression, 
the  historic  unities  of  his  work  by  no  means  coincide  with  those 
herein  favored. 

Some  of  our  later  biographers,  I  may  add,  have  touched  upon 
this  same  period  of  American  history,  as  illustrated  by  the  post 
humous  papers  of  the  particular  statesman  described.  But  all 
such  narratives  are  partial  and  incomplete,  historically  consid 
ered,  however  gratifying  to  the  mind  and  graphic  may  be  the 
portraiture  of  society  from  its  representative  men.  Political  bi 
ography  distorts  events  necessarily  to  give  effect  to  a  personal 
example ;  for  the  public  progress  of  a  new  republic  and  of  a 
people  like,  ours  is  the  advance  of  a  swelling  host  whose  force 
and  direction  are  determined  by  a  myriad  of  influences,  while 
individuals  who  contribute  their  strength  rise  into  view  and  then 
disappear.  It  is  to  trace  this  general  advance,  and  distinguish 
these  impelling  influences,  whether  individual  or  collective,  po 
litical,  moral,  or  social,  that  one  should  devote  himself  in  a  work 
like  the  present ;  and  in  pursuance  of  such  an  object  I  have 
availed  myself  of  whatever  fresh  materials  such  writers  and  col 
lectors  furnish,  without  relying  implicitly  upon  any  one  of  them. 

My  main  desire  is  to  interest  and  instruct  my  countrymen  in 
a  period  of  American  history  which  exhibits  the  primitive  Union, 
and  primitive  manners  ;  a  period  whose  lessons  are  most  salutary 
even  at  this  day,  though  the  march  of  events  be  unaccompanied 
by  ''sonorous  metal  "  or  martial  pomp. 

To  enumerate  the  authorities  consulted  for  these  two  volumes* 
would  savor  too  much  of  pedantry.  The  leading  works  relied 
upon  will  be  found  cited  in  the  foot-notes,  and  to  many  of  them  I 
have  just  alluded  ;  though  these  are  by  no  means  the  author's 
sole  sources  of  information.  Most  of  the  localities  described  are 
personally  familiar  to  me,  and  local  information  has  been  gleaned 
in  various  directions.  My  chief  acknowledgments  are  due  to  the 

*  The  present  volume  conducts  the  narrative  to  March,  1801,  and  the 
second  volume,  now  in  active  preparation,  continues  it  to  March,  1817. 


PREFACE.  V 

successive  Secretaries  of  State,  Seward,  Fish,  and  Evarts,  for 
information  contained  in  the  public  archives  ;  to  Mr.  Spofford, 
the  Librarian  of  Congress  ;  and  for  valuable  materials  relating 
to  early  abolition  societies,  and  Philadelphia  as  our  temporary 
capital*  to  Mr.  Wallace,  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Histori 
cal  Society.  I  have  made  free  use  of  three  excellent  libraries, 
the  Library  of  Congress,  in  Washington,  and  the  Public  and 
Athenaeum  Libraries  in  Boston,  of  which  the  last  named  has  a 
choice  collection  of  old  newspapers  and  periodicals,  highly  valu 
able.  All  accessible  evidence,  from  whatever  sources,  has  been 
eagerly  gathered,  which,  however,  I  have  sifted  and  weighed  by 
the  usual  rules,  preferring  at  all  times  contemporary  testimony 

to  that  of  later  compilers. 

JAMES  SCHOULER. 

NORTH  CONWAY,  N.  II.,  July  15th,  1880. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

SECTION  I. 

THE   THIRTEEN   CONFEDERATE   STATES. 

1783-1787. 

PAGE 

The  United  States  at  close  of  Revolution, 1 

Area,  boundaries,  and  population, 2 

American  slavery  in  1783, 3 

The  two  leading  States,  Virginia  and  Massachusetts,       ...       6 

Character  of  other  States 11 

Progress  by  1783  towards  a  Federal  union, 12 

Continental  Congress ;  Declaration  of  Independence,       .         .         .12 

Articles  of  Confederation,  their  provisions,  " 14 

Defects  in  this  scheme  of  union,  .    , 16 

Large  and  small  States ;  State  reconstruction, 17 

Peace  with  Great  Britain  ;  Washington  resigns,""      .         .         .         .18 

Army  disbanded  ;  the  Cincinnati, 19 

Difficulties  of  Federal  government  after  cessation-  of  war,  .  .19 
Decline  of  authority  1781-1783 ;  mutineers  insult  Congress,  .  .  20 

Disorganizing  forces  of  civil  war, 21 

State  pride ;  inter-State  rivalries, %    .         .         .         .         .         .         .21 

Financial  situation  ;  confederacy  gloomy, 22 

General  delinquency  and  disobedience, 22 

Remedies  proposed ;  amendments  to  the  Articles,  etc.,  or  else  a  con 
vention,     .        .        . "23 

Influence  of  two  young  men,  Hamilton  and  Madison,      .         .         .24 

Their  co-operation  towards  a  new  union,      „ 27 

Impost  amendment  proposed  by  Congress,  .  .  .  .  .28 
Absence  of  older  leaders ;  Washington's  influence, .  .  .  .29 
Alexandria  commissioners  meet  in  1785,  .  .  i  .  .  .29 

Annapolis  conference  of  178G  follows, 30 

This  conference  proposes  Philadelphia  convention  of  May,  1787,     .     31 

(  vii  ) 


viii  CONTENTS. 


I   Desperate  Federal  condition  1786-87  favors  convention,          .         .31 
*   Diplomatic  troubles ;  sectional  rivalry ;  dismemberment  of  old  States,     31 

Shays  rebellion  in  Massachusetts, 32 

Failure  of  impost  amendment ;  New  York  rejects,  .         .         .         .34 
Philadelphia  convention  plan  sanctioned  accordingly  by  States  and 

Congress, 35 


SECTION  II. 

THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION. 
MAY  M-SEPTEMBER  17,  1787. 

Quorum  of  seven  States  at  Philadelphia,  May  25th,  N  .         .     36 

Washington  made  President  on  Franklin's  motion,          .       x        .     3G 
Standing  rules ;  vote  by  States ;  secret  deliberations,        .  ""     .         .     36 
Reported  proceedings ;  Madison's  notes,  etc.,  .....     37 

Members  of  convention  ;  character  of  convention,    .         .         .         .37 

General  course  of  proceedings,          .         .         ...         .         .         .38 

Randolph's  plan  for  new  union  ;  New  Jersey  plan,  etc.,  ./       .         .     38 

Plans  of  Pinckney  and  Hamilton, 39 

Three  great  compromises  of  our  Constitution,  .  .  .  .  .41 
Provisions  relating  to  legislative  branch,  .  .  .  .  .41 
Provisions  as  to  Executive  term,  electoral  choice,  etc.,  .  .  .42 
The  judiciary ;  supremacy  over  States  ;  miscellaneous  provisions,  .  44 

Power  of  amendment,  etc., 46 

Final  draft  of  Constitution ;  signing ;  adjournment,          .         .         .46 


SECTION  III. 

A   MORE   PERFECT   UNION. 

SEPTEMBER  18,  1787-MARCH  3,  1789. 

Origin  of  political  parties  in  the  United  States,        .         .         .         .47 

Parties  previous  to  American  Revolution, 48 

Whig  and  Tory  in  America ;  Whigs  resist  the  King  and  become 

revolutionists, 51 

New  elements  of  political  dissension  during  Revolution, .         .         .52 

Tendency  of  political  parties,  1783  to  1787, 53 

New  issues  and  national  parties  as  to  adoption  of  new  Constitution,      53 

Federalists  and  anti-Federalists, .         .53 

Philadelphia  proceedings  sanctioned  by  Congress;  .        ....     54 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGE 

The  several  States,  the  battle-ground  of  parties,       .         .         .         .54 

Issue  of  ratification  or  non-ratification, 54 

Public  discussions;  the  Federalist  essays, 55 

Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey  ratify  in  1787,  "  .  .58 
Georgia  and  Connecticut  ratify  January,  1788,  .  .  .  .59 
Massachusetts  convention  ;  ratification  with  proposed  amendments,  59 
The  Massachusetts  action  turns  the  scales,  .  .  .  .  .60 
]S~ew  Hampshire  convention  adjourns  ;  Maryland  and  South  Caro 
lina  ratify, 61 

A  ninth  ratifying  State  needful  to  insure  adoption,           .         .         .62 
Struggle  of  parties  in  New^York  and  Virginia,       .         .         .         .62 
Virginia  convention ;  Patrick  Henry,  Washington,  Madison,  Jef 
ferson,  etc.,         .         . 62 

Virginia  ratifies,  proposing  amendments, 66 

New  Hampshire  ratified,  a  few  days  earlier, 66 

Fourth  of  July  rejoicings,  1788,  over  the  ratifying  States,  .  .  66 
Grand  pageant  in  Philadelphia  ;  celebrations  elsewhere, .  .  .66 
New  York  convention  ;  Clinton,  Hamilton,  Jay,  etc.,  .  .  .68 

New  York  the  eleventh  ratifying  State, 68 

Khode  Island  and  North  Carolina  hold  back, 69 

Fruitless  anti-Federal  attempt  to  call  a  second  plenary  convention,  69 
Preparations  for  inaugurating  new  government,  elections,  etc.,  .  70 
Washington  the  unanimous  choice  for  President,  .  .  .  .70 
Candidates  for  Vice-Presidency ;  John  Adams  elected  over  Clinton,  70 

Electoral  plan  and  its  defects, 71 

Anti-Federalist  cause  ruined, .72 

Closing  labors  of  Continental  Congress, 73 

Foreign  affairs ;    dismemberment  of   States  ceases ;  Ordinance  of 

1787,  ,     73 


CHAPTER   II. 

FIEST  ADMINISTKATION  OF  GEOKGE  WASHINGTON. 
SECTION  I. 

PERIOD   OF   FIRST   CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1789-MARCii  3,  1791. 

Arrival  of  Washington  at  New  York  city, 74 

His  journey  thither. 75 

Inaugural  ceremonies, 76 

Kesponses  to  the  address  by  Congress, 79 

Organization  of  the  first  Congress, 80 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Federal  Hall ;  members  of  the  two  houses, 81 

The  first  electoral  count, 85 

Legislative  work  of  first  session, 86 

Impost  and  navigation  ;  tariff,  etc., 86 

No  foreign  discrimination, 91 

Executive  departments  ;  right  of  removal,  etc.,      ....       93 

/The  judiciary, 96 

The  Territories, .  .         .         .97 

^Policy  of  Union  as  to  public  lands  and  new  States,        ...       97 

Ordinance  of  1787  confirmed, *  100 

Amendments  to  the  Constitution, 102 

Salaries  and  appropriations,    .         .         . 104 

Rules  and  etiquette  of  the  two  houses, 105 

Ceremonials  and  titles, 106 

Washington's  duties ;  appointments  to  office,  ....     107 

His  rules  for  executive  intercourse  ;  Cabinet,  etc., .         .         .         .111 
New  York  city  in  1789,          .        .        .        .  .        .        .113 

Social  entertainments ;  levees ;  balls, 114 

Washington's  illness  in  New  York, 116 

Tours  of  President  in  recess  customary, 117 

Homage  paid  to  Washington, 118 

Washington's  relation  to  the  age, 119 

Character  of  Washington, 120 

Washington  now  at  the  zenith  of  personal  popularity,  .         .         .     126 
Rising  prosperity  of  the  Union  in  1790,          .....     126 

Second  session  of  Congress, 127 

Accession  of  North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island,     .         .         .         .127 
New  State  constitutions ;  Georgia  and  Pennsylvania,     .         .         .128 
Legislation  of  second  session :  census,  naturalization,  patent,  copy 
right,  criminal  act,  .         . 129 

Military  measures;  money, weights,  and  measures,         .         .         .     130 

Hamilton's  report  on  the  public  debt, 130 

Funding  system,  and  assumption  of  State  debts,     ....     131 

Assumption  violently  opposed, .136 

Question  of  a  permanent  seat  of  government,         ....     138 
Mutual  adjustment  as  to  assumption  and  the  capital,       .  .     140 

Slavery  debates  in  first  Congress, 142 

Slavery  in  the  United  States, 143 

Quaker  petitions ;  abolition  societies, 144 

Action  of- Congress  concerning  slavery, 148 

Admission  of  Vermont  and  Kentucky, 149 

Death  of  Franklin, .     150 

The  Indian  problem,       .         .         .         ...         .         .         .151 

Troubles  with  Northwestern  Indians;  Harmer's  expedition,  .     152 

Southwestern  Indians ;  McGillivray  and  the  Creek  Treaty,  .         .     155 


CONTENTS.  XI 


Kemoval  to  Philadelphia  as  the  temporary  capital,        ...  158 

Third  session  of  Congress  meets,     .......  158 

Hamilton's  projects  ;  excise  and  a  national  bank,  ....  158 

National  bank  controversy  ;  implied  powers, 

Final  legislation  of  first  Congress,  .         ......  162 

Striking  peculiarities  of  first  Congress,  ......  162 

Committees  ;  intercourse  with  Executive,        .         ...         .        .164 

Oath  required  by  Constitution,        .......  165 


SECTION  II. 

PERIOD  OF  SECOND  CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1791-MARCH  3,  1793       v 

^Political  dissensions  ;  new  party  combinations,  ....  165 

Symptoms  of  dissatisfaction, 166 

^Hamilton's  financial  policy  a  ground  of  dissension,  .  .  .  166 

Tendency  to  a  breach  between  New  England  and  the  South,  .  166 

Middle  State  sentiment;  Pennsylvania  tendency,  .  .  .  .  167 

Mjreat  Britain  and  the  French  revolution 168 

Diplomatic  intercourse  established  with  Great  Britain,  .  .  .  169 

Diverse  theories  upon  American  experiment,  ....  169 

vViews  of  leading  Federalists  ;  Hamilton  as  their  exponent,  .  .  170 

Jefferso'n's  views  against  monarchists  and  British  faction,  .  .  173 

-  John  Adams  and  his  writings, 175 

Jefferson  with  Madison  organizes  an  opposition,  ....  176 

vFreneau's  Gazette;  American  journalism  of  this  day,  .  .  .  177 
Davila. ;  Paine's  Riyhts  of  Man  ;  "  Ptiblicola,"  .  .  .  .1/9 

Washington's  Southern  tour ;  prosperity  of  the  Union, .  .  .  179 

finances;  national  bank  subscriptions,  .  .  .  .  .  .  180 

New  Federal  capital  on  the  Potomac, 181 

Second  Congress ;  new  members;  organization,  .  .  .  ..  184 

•* Party  tendencies;  Hamilton's  plans  opposed,  ....  186 

Report  on  manufactures  ;  tariff;  excise, 187 

Apportionment  of  representatives  ;  new  census,  ....  188 
Secret  sessions  of  Senate  ;  device  on  coins  ;  postal  law,  .  .  .190 

New  appointments  to  office, 191 

Indian  affairs ;  St.  Glair's  disaster,           .         .         .         .         .         .  191 

Public  land  policy  and  Western  speculations,  ....  198 

Scrip  and  bubble  enterprises, .199 

Hamilton  and  the  stockjobbers,  .......  200 

Jefferson  and  the  new  Republican  party, 202 

Cabinet  dissensions ;  Wellington's  concern,  .....  205 


Xll  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


*  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  fall  out  ;  Freneau's  Gazette,       .         .         .  208 

New  Presidential  election  ;  New  York  governorship,    .         .         .  213 
Excise  troubles  in  Pennsylvania  and  North  Carolina,    .         .         .214 

Congress  meets  ;  Indian  policy  criticised,       .....  216 

Hamilton's  financial  plans  distrusted,      ......  216 

Investigation  of  the  treasury,           .......  218 

Legislation  of  session  ;  fugitive  slave  act,  etc.,         ....  219 


CHAPTER   III. 

SECOND  ADMINISTKATION  OF  GEOKGE  WASHINGTON. 
SECTION  I. 

PERIOD   OF  THIRD   CONGRESS 

MARCH  4,  1793-MARCH  3,  1795. 

Simple  exercises  of  second  inaugural, 221 

Emigration  to  America  at  this  period, 221 

Resources  of  the  United  States, 222 

Emigrants;  redemptioners  ;  the  pioneer  life, 224 

Markets ;  primitive  recreation, 229 

Entertainments ;  American  theatricals, 230 

Northern  centres :  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  .  .  .  231 

Epidemics:  small-pox,  yellow  fever,  .  .  .  .  .  .  234 

Municipal  arrangements  ;  public  parks, 238 

Southern  States ;  slave  institutions,         .         .         .  <  .        .  239 

European  sympathies  affect  our  politics,        ,  241" 

French  revolution ;  civic  feasts,      .         .         .         .         .         .  242 

Louis  executed  ;  France  declares  war  against  Great  Britain,          .  243 

Washington's  policy  of  neutrality,          .         .         .         .        .         .  244 

Genet  and  his  mission  to  America,         .         .         .         .        .         .  246 

^'Jefferson  and  Hamilton  on  the  European  conflict,  .  .  .  256 

vy  Congress  assembles  ;  its  political  complexion,  ....  258 

Gallatin  excluded  from  Senate, 258 

^-'Republicanism  gains  in  States, 259 

British  restraints  on  neutral  commerce ;  provision  orders,  etc.,  .  260- 

vXtefferson  retires ;  his  report  on  commerce, 261 

Cabinet  changes  ;  Freneau's  Gazette  and  the  Aurora,  .  .  .  26  L 

Discrimination  resolutions  in  Congress, 262 

x/Fresh  grievances ;  Algerine  troubles,     .         .        .        .         .         .  264 


CONTENTS.  Xill 

PAGE 

New  order  in  council ;  emancipation  in  West  Indies,     .         .         .  2G6 

Lord  Dorchester  and  the  Indians, 207 

Sequestration  ;  embargo  ;  force  measures  proposed,       .         .         .  267 

Hamilton  on  the  crisis  ;  special  mission  to  Great  Britain,      .         .  268 

Jay  appointed  ;  anti-British  measures  checked,      ....  270 
Monroe  minister  to  France ;  John  Quincy  Adams,         .         .         .271 

Excise;  foreign  enlistments, 272 

Abolition  convention  ;  foreign  slave  trade, 272 

Supreme  Court ;  right  to  sue  a  State, 273 

Congress  adjourns  ;  foreign  affairs  tranquil, 274 

Whiskey  insurrection  in  Western  Pennsylvania,    ....  275 

Wayne's  victory  over  the  Northwestern  Indians,    ....  280 

Peace  with  Indians  in  Northwest  Territory, 282 

Second  session  of  Congress  ;  message ;  "  self-created  societies,"     .  283 

Downfall  of  Democratic  societies, 283 

Quibbles  in  Congress  ;  Giles  and  Dexter, 285 

Funding  and  reduction  of  debt,      .......  286 

i/Hamilton  and  Knox  retire ;  Cabinet  changes,         ....  286 

Jefferson  on  the  excise  troubles,     .......  288 

SECTION  II. 

PERIOD   OF   FOURTH    CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1705-MARcn  3,  179^ 

Jay  and  his  special  mission  to  London, ......  289 

vXThe  Jay  treaty  with  Great  Britain, 290 

^Senate  convoked ;  treaty  as  secretly  agreed  to,  .  .  .  293 

Washington  perplexed  ;  new  troubles ;  treaty  made  public,  .  .  294 

Memorials  against  the  treaty  ;  the  country  excited,  .  .  .  295 

Secretary  Randolph's  strange  conduct ;  the  Fauchet  dispatches,  .  297 

Washington  ratifies ;  Randolph  resigns  ;  his  vindication,  .  .  298 

Cabinet  reconstructed  ;  Wolcott,  Pickering,  etc.,  ....  301 

Washington  slandered  ;  the  treaty  unpopular,  ....  304 

Congress  meets  and  organizes  ;  new  members,  ....  305 

Minister  Adet  presents  French  flag, 306 

New  treaties  with  Indians,  Algiers,  and  Spain,      ....  306 

House  debate  on  Jay  treaty  ;  right  to  participate, .         .         .  308 

President  and  House  at  issue,          .         .         .         .         .         .    >•    .  310 

House  debate  as  to  appropriating  for  treaty,  .  .  . ''  .310 

Speeches  of  Madison,  GalJatin,  Ames,  etc., 311 

xJAppropriation  for  treaty  finally  carried, 314 

Miscellaneous  acts  of  session  ;  Tennessee  admitted,  .  .  .  314 

1*111)110  land  law  ;  Indian  trade  ;  building  frigates,  ...  .  315 

Impressment  and  search ;  obnoxious  British  policy,  .  .  .  315 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Northwestern  posts  yielded  up  ;  Jay  trefity  fulfilled,      .         ;        .  316 

New  troubles  with  France ;  Monroe's  unfortunate  mission,  .        .  317 

France  dissatisfied  with  Jay  treaty ;  Minister  Adet,       .         .         .  325 

^Presidential  canvass  ;  Adams  and  Pinckney ;  Jefferson,        .         .  326 

^Washington  and  Jefferson  alienated, 328 

Washington's  farewell  address  ;  loyal  responses,    .         .         .         .331 

Closing  session  of  Congress  ;  changes  in  membership,    .         .         .  332 

Tennessee  represented  ;  Andrew  Jackson  appears,         .         .         .  332 

Washington's  last  recommendations  ;  little  opposition,  .         .         .  333 
"Presidential   election  a  close  one ;    Adams   President,  Jefferson 

Vice-President, 334 

Legislation  ;  closing  scenes  of  this  administration,         .         .     333,  335 

Life  at  Philadelphia,  the  temporary  capital, 336 

Social  leaders  in  the  city,  assemblies,  etc., 337 

Last  days  of  republican  court ;  distinguished  strangers,          .         .  338 

Congress  Hall  in  Philadelphia  ;  appearance  of  Congress,      .         .  339 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  ADAMS. 
SECTION  I. 

PERIOD   OF   FIFTH   CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1797-MARCH  3,  1799. 

Inauguration  of  Adams, 341 

Farewell  honors  paid  Washington, < 

Adams  errs  in  accepting  Washington's  Cabinet,     ....  344 

Anxiety  as  to  France ;  Pinckney  rejected,     .  .         .         .  344 

Question  of  sending  an  extraordinary  embassy,      .         .         .         .  348 

^Views  of  the  new  President, 349 

Special  session  of  Congress  ;  organization  ;  members,     .         .         .  351 

Wrench  situation  discussed, •  352 

Defensive  measures ;  navy  ;  army  ;  revenue, 354 

VThree  envoys  to  France ;  diplomatic  changes,        ....  355 

Petulance  of  France ;  new  drift  of  parties, 356 

Bitterness  between  Federalists  and  Republicans,    ....  358 

l/J  efferson  marshals  his  forces  ;  the  Ma/zei  letter,    ....  359 

Monroe  returns  home  ;  anger  at  his  recall, 361 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

The  Hamilton  scandal  revealed, 362 

Blounl's  impeachment ;  intrigues  against  Spain,    ....  364 

/  Party  press  violent ;  Peter  Porcupine,    .         .         .         .         .         .  367 

Yellow  fever;  Duane  and  the  Aurora;  other  newspapers,     .         .  368 

Second  session  of  Congress  ;  new  members,     .....  369 

President  recommends  ;  Congress  is  listless,  .....  369 

Affair  of  Lyon  and  Griswold, 370 

Federalism  extending  ;  rc^jjk  State  elections,        ....  372 

Geographical  division  of  pjflmfes, 373 

Our  new  envoys  at  Paris  ;  the  special  mission,        ....  373 

Talleyrand  and  his  corrupt  agents, 374 

Gerry  detached  from  his  colleagues  ;  embassy  broken  up,       .         .381 

The  President  and  Cabinet  in  consultation, 382 

Results  communicated  to  Congress, 383 

The  Spriggs  resolutions, 385 

v  Correspondence  disclosed  ;  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches,       ....  386 

Triumph  of  the  administration  ;  war  measures  passed,   .         .         .  386 

Popular  enthusiasm  ;  the  war  spirit  of  America,     ....  387 

Republicans  downcast ;  untenable  ground,      .....  389 

Marshall  returns  ;  President's  final  announcement,         .         .         .  390 

-•Adams's  popularity ;  Federalism  over-zealous,       ....  392 

Dangerous  laws  passed, 393 

New  Naturalization  Act, 393 

*  The  Alien  Acts, - 394 

vThe  Sedition  Act, 390 

Bad  policy  of  this  prescriptive  legislation, 399 

The  press ;  French  and  British  factions, 402 

Final  war  measures  of  this  session,          ......  403 

The  new  American  navy  ;  appointments, 404 

Increased  army ;  Washington  commander-in-chief,         .         .         .  405 

,Military  imbroglio  ;  the  major-generals,         .....  406 

*'  Hamilton  second  ;  the  Miranda  enterprise, 411 

/Adams  growing  indifferent ;  no  French  invasion,  ...         .         .  413 

./French  efforts  for  peace ;  Logan  ;  Gerry, 414 

Talleyrmd's  overtures  to  Murray, 417 

Adams  and  his  Cabinet ;  message  prepared, 418 

Temper  of  Congress  at  final  session, 419 

Petitions  against  Alien  and  Sedition  laws, 420 

Lyon  prosecuted  for  sedition  ;  his  re-election,          ....  420 

v'  Jefferson  takes  advantage  of  Federal  follies, 421 

j  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions,  a  startling  protest,  .         .         .  423 

J  Congress  upholds  Alien  and  Sedition  laws, 425 

Hamilton's  military  ambition  ;  wild  schemes,         ....  426 

Pickering's  report,  and  late  French  documents,      ....  428 

Preparations  against  France  ;  Adams  jealous,          ....  429 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Sudden  nomination  of  Murray ;  new  envoys, 430 

Adams  right,  except  in  his  method, 431 

His  correspondence  with  Washington,    .         .         .         .         .**  434 

Last  measures ;  army  and  navy ;  salaries,  etc.,         .        .  .  435 


SECTIOK  II. 

PERIOD   OF   SIXTH    CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1799-MARcii  3,  1801. 

President  at  home  ;  public  business  suffers, 435 

;  Treaties ;  St.  Domingo  question  ;  Miranda  scheme  fails,  .  .  437 

Naval  encounters,  .  . 439 

The  new  French  envoys  ;  schemes  for  delay, 439 

Adams  orders  envoys  to  sail ;  Cabinet  advisers  foiled,  .  .  .  441 

McKean  Governor  of  Pennsylvania ;  Republican  victory,  .  .  444 

Adams's  birthday  ;  Southern  Federal  gains, 445 

The  Fries  riot ;  sedition  trials  ;  Judge  Chase,  ....  447 

-/Presidential  cabals  ;  death  of  Washington,  .....  451 

Sixth  Congress  in  session  ;  political  complexion,  ....  452 

John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  ;  his  public  encounter,  .  .  .  453 

Plan  of  extending  the  judiciary  ;  sedition;  bankruptcy  act,  .  .  455 

Army  and  navy  reduced  ;  expenditures  stopped,  ....  456 

Animosity  against  Great  Britain  ;  Nash  ;  Williams,  .  .  .  457 

Jay  treaty  commissions  suspended  ;  British  navy  insolent,  .  .  458 

Ohio  and  Mississippi  territories;  new  public  land  laws,  .  .  460 

./Electoral  preparations  ;  Adams  and  Pinckney;  Pennsylvania,  .  461 

Plan  of  electoral  commission  ;  Duane  and  the  Senate,  .  .  .  463 

<New  York  election  favors  Republicans, 464 

Adams  reconstructs  his  Cabinet,  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .  464 

Pickering,  McIIenry,  and  Wolcott  revengeful,  ....  467 

The  Essex  Junto ;  Adams  denounces  the  British  faction^  .  .  469 

Adams's  letter  against  the  Pinckneys  explained,  ....  470 

vllamilton  writes  down  Adams ;  a  party  quarrel,     ....  471 

•vJefferson  and  Burr  ;  Jefferson's  letter  of  principles,  .  .  .  473 

Porcupine's  paper  fails  ;  the  party  press, 474 

Congress  meets  at  Washington  ;  the  new  Federal  city,  .  .  .  475 

New  French  convention  negotiated  and  ratified,  .  -  .  .  ,  477 

Treaty  with  Prussia  ;  W'olcott  resigns  ;  Cabinet  changes,  .  .  479 

Marshall  made  chief  justice  ;  archives  burned,  .  »  •^•M^»  480 

v&lectoral  results  ;  Jefferson  and  Burr  are  equal,  ....  481 

v£fhoice  by  the  House ;  intrigue  to  make  Burr  President,  .  .  483 

^Protracted  balloting  and  excitement ;  Jefferson  elected,  ,  .  48,7 


CONTENTS.  XV11 

PAGK 

Sedition  act;  new  circuit  judges;  miscellaneous  acts,      .         .         .  488 

The  Speaker  gives  offence ;  closing  scenes, 490 

Adams  affronts  Jefferson  ;  midnight  appointments,         .         .         ,  491 

v  Administration  of  John  Adams  reviewed  ;  his  character,        .         .  493 

,,  Downfall  of  the  Federalist  party,    . 500 


APPENDIX. 

A. — Constitution  of  the  United  States  of  America,          .         .         .     503 
B. — Electoral   vote   by  States  for    President   and   Vice-President, 

1789-1801, 520 

C.— Length  of  sessions  of  Congress,  1789-1801,       .        .        .         .523 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE    UNITED    STATES 

rNDEE  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


r  \ 
3  I  TOipTER 


!. 


ODUCTORY. 
SECTION  I. 

THE    THIRTEEN    CONFEDERATE   STATES. 

1783-1787. 

AT  the  close  of  our  Revolution  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA  comprised  the  same  thirteen  republics  whose  repre 
sentatives,  assembled  at  Independence  Hall,  had,  in  the  name 
of  the  American  people,  so  boldly  flung  defiance  at  George 
III  seven  years  earlier,  declaring  the  united  colonies  absolved 
from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown.  "  Free  and  inde 
pendent  States,"  they  were  then  proclaimed  ;  rightfully  free 
and  independent  of  the  mother  country,  the  king  was  after 
a  long  and  stubborn  contest  compelled  to  acknowledge  them. 
But  meantime,  they  had,  by  mutual  assent,  advanced  to  the 
condition  of  a  confederacy,  intended  to  be  perpetual,  whose 
style,  never  since  relinquished,  was  foreshown  in  their  charter 
of  independence.* 

*  As  to  the  style,  ''United  States  of  America,"  of.  Articles  of  Confed 
eration,  Art.  1;  Constitution  of  United  States,  Preamble;  Declaration 
of  Independence,  closing  paragraph.  These  were  the  old  thirteen  Colo 
nies  or  States  :  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts  (or  Massachusetts  I3ay), 
of  which  at  this  time  Maine  constituted  a  district,  Rhode  Island,  Con 
necticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  De:  a  \vare,  Maryland, 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia. 

VOL.  i.—  1  (  1  ) 


2  HISTORY   OF   THE  UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  1. 

Though  covering  less  than  one-fourth  of  its  present  territo 
rial  space,  the  domain  of  the  United  States  was  at  this  period 
vast,  and,  as  compared  with  European  nations,  magnificent; 
comprising  an  area,  in  fact,  so  great  for  experimenting  in  self- 
government  that  sagacious  statesmen  of  the  Old  World  proph 
esied  with  confidence  a  speedy  failure.  Oil  the  east  and  west 
the  United  States  had  natural  boundaries,  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
and  the  broad  Mississippi.  The  chain  of  great  lakes  stood  out 
like  a  bastion  on  the  northern  or  British  frontier,  whose  line, 
however,  ran  unevenly,  and  at  the  northeast  and  northwest 
corners  promised  occasion  for  further  dispute.  The  southern 
boundary,  fixed  by  the  treaty  of  peace  at  parallel  30°,  was 
the  .most  uncertain  and  unsatisfactory  of  all ;  for  leaving  out 
of  view  what  the  parties  to  that  treaty  might  themselves  have 
intended,  the  title  of  the  neighboring  possessions  vested  sub 
stantially  in  Spain,  a  stealthy  foe  to  the  United  States,  who 
had  artfully  kept  out  of  the  negotiations  at  Paris,  and  still 
guarded,  as  well  as  her  decaying  strength  would  permit,  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf  coast.* 

Fortunately  for  our  infant  confederacy,  the  present  sparse- 
ness  of  population  on  these  long  frontiers  favored  a  postpone 
ment  of  controversies,  which  the  law  of  human  increase  must 
eventually  have  determined  in  her  own  favor.  Of  the  exten 
sive  jurisdiction  possessed  by  virtue  of  her  own  sovereignty, 
and  that  of  individual  States,  much  was  a  wilderness,  given 
over  to  the  bear  and  bison  and  their  red  pursuer;  woods  and 
canebrakes  marked  the  sites  of  cities  since  illustrious.  Log- 
forts  and  trading-posts  were  the  precursors  of  civilization  on 
the  northwestern  frontier ;  and  Great  Britain's  delay  in  sur 
rendering  them  according  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  for  which 

*  Six  only  of  the  original  thirteen  States  had  at  this  time  exact 
boundaries,  viz.,  New  Hampshire,  Ehode  Island,  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Delaware,  and  Maryland.  Certain  of  the  other  seven  States 
claimed  a  western  expanse  of  territory  to  the  Mississippi  River,  while 
others  had  asserted  that  their  title  stretched  across  the  continent  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  But  all  these  territorial  claims,  founded  in  colonial 
charters,  were  presently  ceded  to  the  Union,  whose  true  western  boun 
dary,  conformably  to  the  Treaty  of  1783,  became  by  general  recognition 
the  Mississippi  River. 


1783.  BOUNDARIES   AND   POPULATION.  3 

one  and  another  pretext  was  assigned,  proved  a  serious  hin 
drance  to  the  settlement  of  that  region.  South  of  the  Ohio  River 
a  movement  from  Virginia  and  the  States  adjacent,  into  what 
was  called  the  Kentucky  country,  had  already  begun.  But 
nearly  the  whole  population  of  the  United  States  was  at  that 
time  confined  to  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Appalachian  Moun 
tains.  Commercial  traffic  kept  the  inhabitants  close  to  the 
sea,  and  its  immediate  tributaries.  New  York  State,  west  of 
the  Schenectady  cornfields,  remained  an  Indian  country,  the 
home  of  the  once  warlike  Five  Nations.  The  American  Union 
was  in  effect  an  Atlantic  confederacy ;  every  State  bordered 
upon  that  ocean  or  its  tide- waters,  whose  eastern  waves  washed 
Europe;  and  to  the  Americans  of  1783  who  turned  west 
ward,  the  blue  Alleghauies  seemed  as  remote  as  did  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules  to  the  ancients. 

The  total  population  of  the  United  States  in  1783  may  be 
estimated  at  somewhat  less  than  three  and  a  half  million  souls, 
or  only  one-eleventh  of  the  number  of  inhabitants  shown  by 
the  census  of  1870.  A  single  State,  Pennsylvania,  has  to-day 
more  men,  women,  and  children  within  its  borders  than  were 
then  in  the  whole  American  confederacy.  The  population 
appears  to  have  been  distributed  in  three  nearly  equal  portions : 
New  England  holding  one-third;  another  belonging  to  the 
Middle  States,  namely,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Delaware ;  while  the  Southern  States  took  the  residue.  Vir 
ginia,  Massachusetts,  and  Pennsylvania  were  the  most  populous 
States  of  the  confederacy ;  Georgia  and  Rhode  Island  the  least.* 

Not  all  of  these  three  and  a  half  millions,  scarcely  more, 
probably,  than  four-fifths  of  them,  could  be  reckoned  as  free  in 
habitants.  Allowing  for  some  fifty  thousand  free  persons  of 
color  scattered  through  the  country,  there  must  have  been  at 
this  period  no  less  than  six  hundred  thousand  men,  women, 
and  children,  held  in  servitude  to  white  masters,  and  utterly 
denied  the  exercise  of  political  rights.  They  were  of  African 

*  The  above  estimate  of  population  is  approximate  only,  since  no.  reg 
ular  census  of  the  United  States  was  taken  hefore  1790.  Official  statistics 
of  a  few  States  about  this  period  are  to  be  found  in  2  Ilolmes's  Annals 
and  appendix.  And  see  3  Bancroft's  United  States  (cent,  ed.),  83 ;  Niles's 
Register,  October  5,  1811. 


4  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

origin  ;  and  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  colonizing  the  New  World 
had  been  borne  by  this  accursed  traffic  with  the  dark  continent, 
that  American  slavery,  unlike  that  familiar  in  the  records  of 
ancient  history,  came  to  exist  purely  as  a  race  institution  ;  as 
the  subjection,  not  of  debtors  or  vanquished  enemies,  but  of  an 
alien,  uncouth-looking  people,  whom  the  Caucasian  could  hardly 
regard  without  mirth  and  contempt,  even  when  moved  to  com 
passion  for  their  wrongs.  Such  a  slave  institution  is  the 
hardest  of  all  to  eradicate  from  a  community ;  for  the  oppressed 
must  win  genuine  respect  before  the  oppressor  will  admit  him 
to  full  companionship  and  social  equality,  aud  slow  must  be 
the  opportunity.  Ethiopian  immigration  to  America  other 
than  compulsory  was  unknown.  Negro  children  were  born 
into  the  bondage  of  their  parents ;  and  thus  before  1783  had 
the  woolly  head,  thick  lips,  and  ebony  complexion  become  in 
America  the  recognized  badge  of  subjection  and  inferiority. 
No  artifice  could  conceal  the  token?  of  servitude,  no  waters 
wash  out  its  stain.  Even  when  manumitted,  the  freedman 
with  these  birth-marks  was  in  constant  danger  of  being  ar 
rested  as  a  runaway.  The  Indian's  courage  and  ferocity  pre 
served  him  from  this  degraded  condition ;  he  might  be  hunted 
down,  but  who  could  yoke  the  jaguar  to  the  plough?  Amer 
icans  boasted  their  descent  from  Indian  chiefs,  but  none  took 
pride  in  an  Ethiopian  pedigree. 

The  resistless  logic  of  one  burning  sentence,  seared  into  the 
American  mind  for  nearly  a  century,  has,  more  than  all  else 
that  was  ever  written  or  spoken,  wrought  the  downfall  of  slave 
institutions  in  the  United  States.  That  sentence,  the  state 
ment  of  truths  "self-evident"  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence,  found  its  way  into  one  State  constitution  after  another. 
It  has  been  for  successive  generations  a  bosom  text ;  and  incor 
porated  moreover  into  the  charters  of  Spanish-American  re 
publics  as  yet  less  favored,  it  serves  everywhere  as  an  inspira 
tion  to  struggling  humanity. 

In  1783  there  was  a  public  conscience,  yet  the  menacing 
danger  of  a  practice  so  utterly  at  variance  with  the  fundamen 
tal  theory  of  our  government  that  all  men  were  created  equal, 
was  but  dimly  apprehended.  Europe,  in  her  greed  for  gain,  had 
from  the  outset  woven  slavery  into  the  warp  of  her  colonial  policy 


1783.  AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  5 

that  the  home  revenue  might  be  greater.  Not  guiltless  was 
Great  Britain  of  this  offence  ;  but  for  the  sake  of  rice,  tobacco, 
and  indigo,  to  be  interchanged  with  home  manufactures,  her 
ministry  had  crammed  negroes  into  the  Southern  country  re 
gardless  of  the  colonists'  complaints.  In  vain  had  the  Vir 
ginia  House  of  Burgesses  protested  against  the  "inhumanity 
of  the  slave-trade."  When  the  American  Colonies  first  con 
certed  measures  of  resistance  to  the  king,  the  sentiment  among 
them  was  strong,  that  they  who  contend  against  human  oppres 
sion  ought  not  to  be  themselves  the  oppressors  of  others ;  and 
thus  inspired,  the  early  Congress  of  1774  resolved  to  wholly 
discontinue  the  slave-trade.  But  patriotism  breaks  into  its 
brightest  flame  where  the  fuel  is  fresh  ;  and  as  the  tedious  war 
went  on,  North  and  South  showed  more  diversity  of  sentiment 
in  a  supposed  diversity  of  interests.  It  was  ominous  that  by 
1776,  rather  than  irritate  men  who  if  humored  were  ready  to 
commit  the  colonies  they  represented  to  the  cause  of  inde 
pendence,  a  clause  in  the  draft  of  the  immortal  instrument, 
which  would  have  denounced  the  king's  sanction  of  slave  im 
portation  as  the  waging  of  "cruel  war  against  human  nature 
itself,"  was  stricken  out.  While  the  Revolution  lasted  slave- 
traders  found,  doubtless,  little  occasion  to  offend  ;  but  the 
crowning  opportunity  for  making  their  vocation  infamous  was 
deliberately  cast  aside.* 

Emancipation  was  a  problem  for  the  several  States  to  con 
sider,  each  for  herself;  and  to  these,  as  sovereigns,  Congress 
left  the  decision.  But  legislatures  hesitated  to  take  the  final 
step,  even  while  the  pulse  of  independence  beat  highest.  A 
proposal  that  blacks  should  be  enlisted  as  Continental  soldiers 
met  with  only  moderate  favor;  enough,  ho\vever,  to  aid  the 
cause  of  emancipation  in  Rhode  Island.  The  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  delegates  to  Congress  opposed  the  advice  of  their 
brethren  in  this  respect.  It  is  little  to  the  honor  of  Great 
Britain  that  after  having  sown  the  dragon's  teeth  herself,  she 
should  now  try  to  foster  an  insurrection  ;  but  this  Dtinrnore,  a 


*  See  1  Bancroft,  c.  5 ;  3  Ib.  p.  407 ;  7  Ib.  p.  147  ;  8  Ib.  p.  321 ;  <)  Ib. 
p.  4G8 ;  10  Ib.  p.  291 ;  also  c.  46,  cent.  ed.  The  first  shipment  of  negro 
slaves  was  landed  in  the  United  States  August,  1G20,  by  a  Dutch  man-of- 
war  in  the  James  Kiver. 


6  IIISTOBY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

/ 

royal  governor,  attempted  in  Virginia.  The  result  was  a  dis 
appointment ;  neither  would  the  lazy  and  sluggish  slave  lift 
his  hand  in  violence  against  his  master  nor  the  master  sue  the 
king  for  mercy.  These  efforts  were  soon  abandoned,  and  the 
royal  commanders  at  length  confined  their  annoyance  of  re 
bellious  subjects  to  carrying  negroes  away  as  plunder.  Many 
blacks  who  took  refuge  under  the  British  flag  were  after 
wards  sold  in  the  West  Indies.* 

Slavery  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution  had  a  legal  footing  in 
all  of  the  States  but  one.  Nor  was  the  day  beyond  the  memory 
of  men  living  when  that  one  shared  in  the  general  disgrace  ;  for 
Boston's  cradle  of  liberty  was  the  gift  of  one  whose  means  had 
been  aided  by  unrequited  labor.  But  the  first  public  oration 
uttered  within  its  walls  did  not  commemorate  Peter  Faneuil's 
virtues  without  paying  a  tribute  of  loyalty  to  the  king  he 
served  ;f  and  since  times  change,  the  commonwealth  which 
presses  onward  in  the  right  direction  can  afford  to  forget  its 
/  past.  Massachusetts  now  enjoyed  the  proud  distinction  of  the 
only  State  in  the  whole  confederacy  where  all  men  were  free 
and  equal  before  the  law.  Her  sister  States  of  New  England 
Avere,  however,  preparing  to  follow  her  example,  and  Connec 
ticut  passed  her  freedom  act  in  1784.  Pennsylvania  had  taken 
the  decisive  step  of  emancipation  as  early  as  1780.  But  while 
Massachusetts  shook  off  slavery  by  a  single  effort,  all  of  these 
made  local  emancipation  gradual.  As  yet  no  other  members 
of  the  confederacy  appear  to  have  gone  farther  than  to  pro 
hibit  the  further  introduction  of  slaves,  though  every  State 
constitution  avoided  giving  to  the  establishment  of  local  slavery 
anything  like  an  express  sanction.  A  problem  found  compar 
atively  easy  where  those  held  to  bondage  performed  little  be 
side  menial  service,  must  have  been  immensely  difficult  for 
communities  to  solve,  whose  whole  capital  was  employed  in 
raising  crops  to  which  negro  labor  appeared  indispensable. J 

The  two  leading  States  of  the  American  confederacy  in 
population  and  force  of  ideas  were,  without  question,  the  two 

*  3  Hildreth's  United  States,  305,  355 ;  8  Bancroft,  223. 

f  Drake's  Landmarks  of  Boston. 

J  3  Hildreth,  390;  9  Bancroft,  468  j  10  Ib.  ch.  17. 


1783.  VIRGINIA   AND   MASSACHUSETTS.  7 

oldest, — Virginia  and  Massachusetts.  Situated  so  far  apart, 
and  with  co-ordinate  rather  than  conflicting  material  interests, 
they  came  together  without  a  serious  thought  of  rivalry.  These 
were  the  Sparta  and  Athens  of  our  Revolution  ;  uniting  their 
forces  against  the  common  enemy,  however,  far  more  gener 
ously  than  had  ever  those  quarrelsome  republics.  But  for 
their  prompt  alliance  in  the  first  measures  of  colonial  resist 
ance,  American  independence  and  union  would  have  been  im 
possible  ;  there  might  have  emerged  from  the  battle-smoke  a 
New  England  Phosnix,  perhaps  several  leagues,  but  never  a 
Continental  confederacy.  There  is  no  such  picture  of  unselfish 
accord  in  the  world's  annals  as  that  of  Virginia  and  Massa 
chusetts  in  1775.  The  fires  they  kindled  at  the  extremes  of 
the  king's  dominions  caused  the  feebler  flames  to  leap  high  at 
the  centre.  Massachusetts  had  her  Otis,  Virginia  her  Patrick 
Henry — twin  apostles  of  freedom ;  the  theme  of  whose  elo 
quence  outlives  in  tradition  those  winged  words  which  refused 
to  be  penned.  Hancock  and  the  Adamses  concerted  plans 
with  Lee  and  Jefferson  on  the  floor  of  Congress.  One  State 
gave  to  the  patriot  army  a  leader  born  to  conquer,  the  other 
kept  the  ranks  recruited.  Both  were  drained  heavily  for  the 
cost  of  the  war,  but  both  remained  steadfast  to  the  American 
cause  and  to  one  another.  When  Boston  port  was  closed  Vir 
ginia  hastened  with  relief,  and  Massachusetts  repaid  the  debt 
in  kind  at  the  siege  of  Yorktowu.  The  soil  of  the  one  State 
drank  the  first  blood  of  the  Revolution,  and  that  of  the  other 
the  last. 

And  yet  how  different  the  social  conditions  of  these  two  com 
monwealths.  In  Massachusetts  appeared  the  fullest  type  of 
the  New  Englauder,  or  "  Yankee,"  already  far-renowned  as 
sharp,  clever,  tenacious,  energetic,  and  of  an  encroaching  dis 
position.  Here  flourished  a  republic  founded  in  equal  rights, 
the  most  successful  experiment  of  the  kind  then  known.  The 
legislature  or  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  was  an  aggre 
gate  of  towns,  acting  through  town  representatives.  To  this 
town  system  it  was  largely  owing  that  the  political  ma 
chinery  ran  so  smoothly.  Town-meetings,  the  unit  of  self- 
government,  brought  men  together  for  a  primary  education 
in  affairs,  and  the  neighborly  association  of  citizens  gave  a 


8  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

powerful  impulse  to  public  spirit.  Boston  was  the  abode  of 
commerce  and  refinement,  the  capital  and  chief  town  of  the 
State  and  of  New  England.  And  yet  no  municipality,  not 
Boston  herself,  was  so  populous  and  cumbersome  that  the 
public  operations  which  most  concerned  him  might  elude  the 
keen  eye  of  the  private  taxpayer.  Wealth  was  not  monopo 
lized,  but  nearly  all  toiled  for  a  living.  Laud  was  closely  sub 
divided  ;  there  were  many  freeholders,  but  few  patroons.  Cli 
mate  and  soil  alike  favored  energy  of  character,  while  each 
inhabitant  found  a  great  diversity  of  pursuits  to  choose  from. 
Public  schools  had  long  flourished.  Religious  discipline  was 
universally  strict.  Though  family  attachments  were  strong, 
and  every  town  boasted  familiar  surnames,  aristocracy  had  no 
deep  root;  and  with  the  dispersion  of  that  set  which  had  held 
colonial  office  under  the  king,  former  class  pretensions  were 
much  loosened.  Yet  modern  Massachusetts  partook  in  some 
degree  of  that  austere,  fanatical  spirit  which  so  distinguished 
the  Puritan  progenitor,  who  was  a  stubborn  believer  in  visions 
and  special  providences,  and  claimed  the  Lord  for  his  side 
whoever  he  might  raise  up  for  his  own  enemy.  As  one  who 
judged  his  neighbor  harshly,  rarely  groped  among  twilight 
uncertainties,  arid  insisted  upon  devout  observances  so  strongly 
as  to  err,  when  he  erred  at  all,  in  the  direction  of  a  nasal  self- 
righteousness,  the  New  Englander  appeared  to  many  a  scarcely 
less  desirable  friend  than  foe.  He  made  a  grand  rebel,  but  an 
indifferent  manager  of  other  people.  There  appeared  about 
primitive  New  England  a  strange  variety  of  breadth  and  nar 
rowness,  like  some  swift  river  working  through  rocky  gorges. 
This  betokened  a  strong  character  wrestling  with  imperfect 
opportunities;  disputatious,  because  set  to  energize  upon  the 
concerns  of  a  petty  existence  ;  a  narrow  interpreter  of  writings, 
because  lie  reverenced  ink  and  parchment,  and  believed  a  bless 
ing  wrested  from  them  would  endure;  saving,  often  niggardly  in 
his  economies,  because,  with  stony  soil  and  rude  weather,  it 
was  not  easy  to  make  a  living.  But  the  New  Englander  had 
backbone,  audacity,  habits  of  industry,  and  a  conscientious 
disposition.  Experience  and  travel  would  widen  his  vision  ; 
increasing  wealth  foster  a  more  generous  sentiment.  Under 
slight  reservations  Massachusetts  was  liberalized  New  Eng- 


1783.  VIRGINIA   AND    MASSACHUSETTS.  9 

land ;  Boston  was  liberalized  Massachusetts ;  and  liberalized 
Boston  carried  the  heaviest  brain  in  America. 

Virginia  had  very  different  advantages  to  boast  of.  Not 
withstanding  the  liberal  politics  of  her  most  enlightened  sous, 
her  institutions  were  at  this  time  essentially  aristocratic.  This 
was  owing  partly  to  the  circumstances  under  which  the  State 
had  been  colonized,  partly  to  the  enervating  climate  and  spon 
taneous  fertility  of  the  land,  which  tempted  those  who  could 
afford  it  to  leave  work  to  others  and  take  their  ease,  and 
partly,  of  course,  to  the  long  continuance  of  slavery  as  part 
of  the  agricultural  and  social  system.  Virginia  was  colon 
ized  by  gentlemen,  and  often  helpless  ones  at  that;  blood 
and  pedigree  always  ruled  in  her  affairs;  the  religious  es 
tablishment  was  the  Church  of  England;  there  were  entails 
and  family  settlements  as  in  the  mother  country,  and  of  her 
many  illustrious  sons  few  were  born  poor,  and  not  one  was  of 
mean  extraction.  Tobacco  was  the  great  staple  of  a  State 
given  over  to  agriculture,  whose  great  mineral  resources  had 
been  but  slightly  developed,  and  whose  manufactures  and 
commerce  were  always  insignificant.  So  few  were  the  skilled 
mechanics  in  this  populous  State  ai,  the  present  period  that  a 
rich  planter,  who  could  make  lavish  display  of  costly  imported 
furniture,  plate,  and  linen,  lodged  not  uncommonly  in  a  rickety 
house,  with  smoky  chimneys,  broken  window-panes,  and  doors 
which  the  ever-welcome  guest  had  to  claw  open. 

There  was  a  dash  of  chivalry,  frankness,  and  generosity  about 
the  true-blooded  Virginian  which  made  his  leadership  irresis 
tible.  And  what  more  prolific  mother  of  a  nobility  was  there 
in  the  eighteenth  century  than  the  Old  Dominion  ?  Her  Ran 
dolphs,  Masons,  Lees,  PeudJetons,  and  Wythes  were  of  marked 
ability ;  men  of  progress.  Henry,  as  a  popular  orator,  had  no 
superior,  and  scarcely  an  equal.  A  younger  set,  of  whom  Jef 
ferson  was  the  idol,  were  the  boldest  experimenters  in  America 
of  the  republican  idea,  applying  themselves  as  earnestly  to 
State  as  Continental  problems.  But  here  were  no  immortal 
Putnams,  Shermans,  or  Reveres. 

The  poor  white  of  Virginia  was  not  an  interesting  personage. 
Thrifty  Scotch  and  other  local  traders  would  make  up  a  little 
community  of  their  own,  taking  slight  part  in  American  poli- 


10  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

tics.  But  the  humbler  native,  leading  a  vagabond  life  and 
subsisting  miserably,  accepted  the  low  estate  to  which  he  was 
born  with  little  ambition  to  improve  it.  If  a  mechanic,  his 
skill  rarely  went  beyond  patching  a  shoe  or  stopping  a  leaky 
roof;  as  a  farmer,  he  left  his  corn  and  tobacco  to  scratch  their 
way  upward  through  the  ill-dressed  ground  while  he  sauntered 
idly  about  with  his  gun  like  a  scarecrow  in  motion.  He  was, 
however,  good-natured,  generous  according  to  his  means,  and 
as  hospitable  in  a  poor  way  as  the  best  gentleman  he  patterned 
after,  ready  to  give  up  with  his  wife  the  only  bed  in  the  house 
to  any  decent  traveller  who  asked  a  night's  shelter.  He  was 
fond  of  his  State  and  its  great  men,  and  loyal  to  some  one  of 
the  blood  families  who  contended  for  the  honor  of  pocketing 
the  borough  in  which  he  voted.  He  liked  political  excite 
ment;  eloquence,  of  which  Virginians  had  a  copious  supply, 
made  his  wild  eyes  glisten,  and  when  his  own  candidate  gave 
a  sharp  thrust,  he  slapped  his  lon"^  shanks  and  showed  his 
yellow  teeth  from  ear  to  ear.  He,  like  his  superiors,  had  a 
turn  for  dissipation  and  low  sports.  Cock-fights,  to  which, 
indeed,  the  political  hustings  bore  no  slight  resemblance,  were 
a  favorite  amusement.  A  true  Virginian  would  go  miles  to 
see  a  handsome  horse  show1  his  points ;  and  it  was  strange  if 
he  returned  home  from  a  racecourse  without  having  depleted 
one  pocket  at  a  gaming-table  and  suffered  a  mental  evapora 
tion  in  the  contents  of  the  flask  of  native  whiskey  or  peach 
brandy  which  he  bore  in  the  other.  But,  drunk  or  sober,  he 
was  sensitive  of  his  honor,  which  he  would  maintain,  if  need 
be,  at  the  pace  of  a  pistol's  shot. 

Such  was  the  type  more  particularly  of  the  eastern  and 
more  populous  district  of  Virginia.  The  mountain  range 
which  subdivided  the  State  influenced  a  variation  among 
highland  and  lowland  settlers  in  pursuits  and  social  traits. 
But  Virginia  character  had  always  the  same  bold  lines ;  its 
best  development  was  invariably  in  the  patrician  rank,  whose 
vices,  as  often  happens  under  like  conditions,  the  plebeians 
copied  more  faithfully  than  their  virtues. 

The  Virginia  gentleman  was  a  born  politician,  like  most 
Southern  planters  of  large  means.  He  commonly  received  a 
good  education;  and  yet,  wedded  little  to  books,  and  growing 


1783.  VIRGINIA   AND    MASSACHUSETTS.  11 

up  in  an  out-of-door  atmosphere,  he  led  not  so  much  from 
force  of  scholarly  attainments,  as  from  his  capacity  for  pro 
found  convictions,  his  tact  and  sympathetic  acquaintance  with 
human  nature.  He  did  not  domineer  so  offensively  nor  lose 
his  temper  so  readily  as  his  brethren  of  a  lower  latitude.  He 
was  manly  and  wholesome  ;  no  grinding  routine  narrowed  his 
experience  of  life  ;  he  was  no  truckler  or  dissembler,  neither 
sordid  nor  corrupt. 

To  men  of  this  calibre,  inclining  to  good-fellowship,  with  a 
tendency  to  waste  and  rapid  exhaustion  like  their  own  tobacco 
lauds,  some  special  incentive  is  needful  to  inspire  heroic  effort. 
Such  an  incentive  was  found  in  the  effort  of  George  III  to 
coerce  the  colonies  into  tributaries.  Virginia's  resistance  was 
spirited,  like  that  of  the  barons  at  Runny  mede.  Suffering  by 
no  means  such  outrageous  discipline  as  Massachusetts,  and 
able,  if  she  chose,  to  make  terms  with  the  Crown  for  her  own 
separate  advantage,  she  jpurned  the  thought  of  selfishness 
and  made  the  cause  of  America  and  of  distant  brethren  her 
own.  Proud  of  her  name  and  traditions,  Virginia,  without 
hesitation,  took  her  rightful  place  in  council  as  the  oldest  of 
the  British  colonies,  and  became  during  the  most  critical 
period  an  acknowledged  leader,  no.  without  yielding  to  Mas 
sachusetts  her  due  share  of  honor.  Aud  though  a  slavehold- 
ing  State,  whose  black  population  nearly  equalled  the  \vhite; 
her  conscience  was  so  tender  while  the  leaven  of  revolution 
was  working  that  she  was  almost  persuaded  to  emancipate. 

Besides  these  two  representative  States  of  New  England 
and  the  South  were  others  of  strongly  marked  and  contrasting 
traits:  steady  Connecticut,  for  instance,  the  land  of  common 
schools,  happy  farmers,  and  uniform  prosperity ;  and  her  an 
tipodes,  South  Caroliua,  the  Hotspur  State. 

As  for  the  middle  section  of  the  country,  however,  through 
which,  somewhat  incoherently,  permeated  Massachusetts  and 
Virginia  ideas,  here  appeared  great  wealth,  great  numbers, 
great  prosperity,  without  correspondingly  great  influence  in 
Continental  affairs.  In  fact,  the  elements  which  composed  the 
population  of  the  busy  commonwealths,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  were  quite  heterogeneous.  Finns, 
Swedes,  and  Hollanders  had  preceded  the  English,  and  a  con- 


12  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

quering  people  found  itself  conquered  in  turn.  Religious  as 
well  as  race  differences  had  left  strong  lines  of  social  demar 
cation  in  each  State,  which  a  century  of  British  rule  could  not 
obliterate,  more  especially  as  the  emigration  continued 
strangely  composite  as  before.  The  State  of  New  York, 
whose  swarm,  for  the  present,  occupied  the  banks  and  mouth 
of  the  Hudson,  was  ruled  by  patroous  and  select  families.  Of 
Pennsylvania,  Burke  had  observed  in  1761,  that  foreigners 
were  still  left  foreigners,  and  were  likely  to  continue  so  for 
many  generations ;  "  in  short,"  he  adds,  "  the  diversity  of 
people,  religions,  nations,  and  languages  here  is  prodigious."* 
Necessarily  discordant  in  political  ideas,  and  with  a  large  ele 
ment  in  their  midst  wholly  disaffected,  it  was  not  strange  that 
these  States  were  not  easily  pinioned  to  the  patriot  cause.  A 
soil  long  overrun,  too,  as  theirs  was,  by  hostile  armies  advanc 
ing  and  retreating  in  turn,  is  likely  to  yield  accommodating 
principles.  Besides  the  money-making  Dutchman,  our  vete 
rans  found  the  British  Tory  strong  in  this  section,  especially 
at  the  commercial  centres.  Certainly  the  soul  of  the  American 
struggle  must  have  been  elsewhere  when  the  British  could 
occupy  Philadelphia  and  Now  York  so  long  without  seriously 
diverting  the  fortunes  of  war. 

But  each  of  the  States  of  this  section  had  been  kept  true 
to  the  cause  of  American  Independence  by  a  devoted  band 
led  on  by  such  choice  spirits  as  Clinton,  Schuyler,  Jay,  and 
young  Hamilton  in  New  York,  and,  in  Pennsylvania,  Morris, 
the  financier,  and  Franklin,  the  most  useful  civilian  of  his 
times  in  all  America. 

Let  us  inquire  what  progress  our  people  had  made  by  1783 
in  the  direction  of  a  federal  union.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that 
central  power  in  America  was  first  assumed  by  a  sort  of 
usurping  assembly;  or  rather  by  a  body  of  men  who,  without 
waiting  for  a  formal  delegation  of  authority  from  the  several 
Colonies  they  represented,  did  what  on  the  whole  the  country 
appeared  to  need  and  a  sudden  emergency  required.  But 
whence  this  Congress?  During  the  French  and  Indian  wars 

*  9  Burke's  Works,  Boston  ed.,  p.  345;  John  William  Wallace, 
Perm.  Hist.  Soc.  Discourse,  1872. 


1783.        THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  13 

general  conferences  had  taken  place,  attended  more  or  less 
largely  by  delegates  of  different  Colonies.  The  Stamp  Act  as 
sembly,  sometimes  styled  a  Congress,  was  plainly  a  body  of 
representatives,  gathered  from  nine  of  the  thirteen  Colonies, 
without  royal  permission,  for  a  specific  purpose.  The 
idea  of  common  consultation  by  delegates  ripened 
gradually.  But  not  until  1774  did  that  which  became  a  per 
manent  American  Congress  first  assemble ;  and  this  assem 
bly,  which  began  as  a  meeting  of  delegates  called  from  all 
the  Colonies  for  public  consultation,  was  in  fact  the  fruit  of  a 
secret  correspondence  over  the  king's  hostile  measures.  The 
meeting  instead  of  dissolving,  adjourned,  and  before  it  reas 
sembled  came  the  crisis  in  affairs.  Thus  originated  that 
remarkable  representative  body  known  as  the  Continental 
Congress,  which,  with  its  periodical  sessions  and  frequent 
changes  of  membership,  bore  for  nearly  fifteen  years  the  sym 
bols  of  Federal  power  in  America  ;  which,  as  a  single  house  of 
deputies  acting  by  Colonies  or  States,  and  blending  with  legis 
lative  authority  imperfect  executive  and  judicial  functions, 
raised  armies,  laid  taxes,  contracted  a  common  debt,  negotiated 
foreign  treaties,  made  war  and  peace;  which,  in  the  name  and 
with  the  assumed  warrant  of  the  thirteen  Colonies,  declared 
their  independence  of  Great  Britain,  and  by  God's  blessing  ac 
complished  it ;  which,  having  framed  and  promulgated  a  plan 
of  general  confederation,  persuaded  these  same  thirteen  repub 
lics  to  adopt  it,  each  making  a  sacrifice  of  its  sovereignty  for 
the  sake  of  establishing  a  perpetual  league,  to  be  known  as  the 
United  States  of  America,— a  league  preserved  until  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  came  a  more  perfect  union.  For  all  this,  its 
only  credentials  of  authority  during  the  most  critical  period 
of  the  Revolution  were:  (1.)  A  pressing  exigency,  by  most 
believed  to  be  only  temporary,  which  first  brought  together  at 
Philadelphia  delegates  whose  several  Colonies  had  vaguely 
pledged  the  public  support  to  their  action.  (2.)  The  speedy 
drift  of  events,  more  especially  in  Massachusetts,  to  bloodshed 
and  revolution.  (3.)  Absolute  control  of  the  patriot  army  ;  a 
responsibility  which  it  never  abused.  (4.)  The  general  sub 
mission  of  colonists  to  its  measures,  which  patriotic  sentiment 
prompted,  and  a  sense  of  common  danger.  The  Continental 


14  HISTORY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  I. 

Congress  reached  the  pinnacle  of  greatness  when,  in  1776,  it 
declared  allegiance  with  Great  Britain  utterly  dissolved.  The 
grinding  cares  of  the  war  exhausted  it ;  peace,  we  shall  see, 
brought  it  to  the  ground.  Once  an  object  of  dread  to  State 
sovereignty,  it  perished  in  contempt ;  but  from  its  smouldering 
embers  sprang  the  new  Phoenix  of  threefold  authority,  which 
sees  as  yet  no  decay. 

We  are  to  regard  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  the 
Magna  Charta  of  this  New  World.  Yet  it  is  not  from  this 
instrument  that  the  American  Union  derives  its  being.  In 
declaring  a  dissolution  of  their  political  connection  with  Great 
Britain  the  several  colonies  theoretically  resolved  themselves 
into  free  and  independent  States.  But  union  was  well  under 
stood  to  accompany  independence  so  as  to  make  it  secure;  and 
the  preparation  of  some  suitable  plan  of  confederation  had  been 
one  of  the  subjects  for  reference  in  the  famous  Lee  resolves. 
Yet  men  who  have  resolved  to  unite  divide  when  it  comes  to 
arranging  the  actual  details  of  union.  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion  were  reported  from  the  committee  July  12th,  1776;  but 
Congress  withheld  its  sanction  till  near  the  close  of  1777, 
when  in  an  amended  form  the  plan  went  to  the  States  for 
their  separate  adoption.  As  these  Articles  could  not  take  effect 
until  all  of  the  thirteen  had  ratified,  and  something  appeared 
in  the  plan  obnoxious  to  each  one,  it  is  not  strange  that  sev 
eral  more  years  were  wasted  in  discussion.  The  United  States 
of  America  had  no  existence  as  a  government  under  a  funda 
mental  compact  until  the  spring  of  1781,  by  which  time  the 
success  of  the  patriot  arms  was  Jjardly  doubtful.  The  Union, 
indeed,  had  its  flag  before  a  fundamental  charter,  and  its  army 
a  commander  before  a  flag.* 

The  first  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the 
desk  upon  which  it  was  composed  are  religiously  preserved. 
We  know  how  and  by  whom  every  joist  and  rafter  was  set  into 
our  later  Constitution.  But  how  the  Articles  of  Confederation 

*  The  thirteen  stripes  of  alternate  red  and  white,  typical  of  the  con 
federate  alliance,  appeared  in  the  flag  Washington  unfurled  at  Cam 
bridge,  but  the  British  cross  was  in  the  union.  Congress  authorized  a 
flag  of  the  United  States  in  1777,  with  a  union  of  thirteen  stars  in  a 
blue  field  instead. 


1783.  ARTICLES   OF   CONFEDERATION.  15 

were  prepared,  few  ask  and  none  can  answer ;  nor  has  any  one 
claimed  to  be  their  author.  Rumor  ascribes  the  chief  share  to 
Dickinson,  who  was  prominent  in  the  committee  ;  but  much 
of  the  committee  work  must  have  been  cut  to  order.*  As  a 
framework  of  government  this  plan  was  no  better  than  a 
makeshift;  an  effort  to  pare  off  slices  of  State  sovereignty 
without  diminishing  the  loaf;  to  circumscribe  circumscrip 
tion  ;  to  set  centralism  in  motion  with  one  hand  and  stop  it 
with  the  other.  That  such  a  union  could  be,  as  the  scheme 
professed,  perpetual,  was  impossible. 

Under  these  Articles,  as  independently  of  them,  the  sole 
functions  of  Federal  authority  vested  in  a  Continental  Con 
gress,  consisting  of  a  single  house  of  delegates,  who  voted  by 
States,  and  were  annually  appointed  in  such  manner  as  their 
respective  States  might  direct,  receiving  their  stipend  from 
the  State  treasury.  In  such  a  legislature,  which  a  split  Senate 
of  the  present  day  might  resemble,  the  American  people  found 
no  direct  representation.  A  president  of  Congress  was  desig 
nated  chiefly  for  ceremonial  duties  ;  while  executive  functions 
were  administered  to  some  extent  by  a  Committee  of  States, 
empowered  to  sit  during  the  recess.  In  ordinary  course,  seven 
out  of  thirteen  States  might  thus  have  directed  affairs;  but  in 
order  to  prevent  this  it  was  expressly  forbidden  the  United 
States  to  engage  in  war,  make  treaties,  coin  money,  borrow  or 
appropriate,  assign  quotas,  or  even  appoint  a  commauder-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  except  upon  the  assent  of  nine  States.  This 
provision,  framed  in  the  interest  of  a  minority,  might  seem 
like  taking  the  crutches  froraH  lame  man. 

The  general  authority  thus  oenferred  upon  the  United  States 
embraced  the  concerns  of  peace  and  war,  foreign  intercourse, 
inclusive  of  the  power  to  make  treaties,  the  regulation  of  coins, 
weights  and  measures,  Indian  affairs,  and  the  general  post- 
office. 

Congress,  responsible  for  the  common  debt  already  incurred, 
might  borrow  money  and  emit  bills  of  credit.  Extradition 
and  mutual  intercourse  to  much  the  same  extent  as  under  the 
ancient  New  England  confederacy  were  benefits  promised  the 


*  Madison's  Debates,  introd. ;  9  Bancroft,  47-55- 


16  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

several  States  by  this  plan  of  union.  Arid  with  the  general 
powers  conferred  upon  Congress  they  were  forbidden  to  inter 
fere  ;  while  at  the  same  time  these  Articles  emphatically  re 
served  to  the  several  States  all  powers  not  expressly  delegated. 
In  such  a  scheme  of  Federal  union  might  be  pointed  out 
several  fatal  defects.  (1.)  The  want  of  sanction,  or  some  com 
pulsory  means  of  enforcing  obedience.  This  charter  provided 
neither  executive  nor  judiciary  worth  mentioning,  and  no 
means  whatever  of  securing  the  steady  operation  of  the  pro 
visions  which  were  most  vital  to  the  general  welfare.  A 
single  member  of  the  confederacy  might  defy  or  disregard  a 
constitutional  decree  of  Congress ;  in  which  case  there  was  no 
resort,  should  persuasion  prove  futile,  but  to  draw  the  sword 
and  proclaim  civil  war.  In  theory  each  State  would  with 
alacrity  fulfil  its.  solemn  obligation,  else,  to  punish  its  stubborn 
ness,  all  the  others  would  rally  to  the  side  of  Congress.  But 
in  practice,  as  will  presently  be  shown,  the  example  of  State 
disobedience  became  contagious,  and  led  to  a  general  derelic 
tion  of  duty  instead.  (2.)  Operation  of  the  fundamental  law, 
not  upon  citizens  and  individuals,  but  upon  States  or  people  in 
the  mass.  (3.)  The  large  vote  requisite  in  Congress  for  the 
passage  of  all  important  general  measures.  Five  States  could 
lawfully  obstruct  legislation  essential  to  the  interests  of  the 
Union,  in  utter  contempt  of  the  wishes  of  the  other  eight  and 
a  manifest  public  necessity.  (4.)  The  absence  of  a  right  to 
regulate  foreign  commerce  and  make  duties  uniform,  much 
less  to  collect  those  duties.  (5.)  A  virtual  omission  of  all 
power  to  alter  or  amend  existing  Articles.  The  power  to  alter 
is  the  safety-valve  of  every  political  constitution ;  since  law 
only  scoops  the  channel  for  advancing  society  to  run  in.  Al 
teration  was  possible,  as  these  Articles  read,  if  the  proposed 
amendment  should  be  first  agreed  to  in  Congress,  and  after 
wards  confirmed  by  the  legislature  of  every  State.  But  if,  as 
might  likely  happen,  the  interests  of  a  single  commonwealth 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  general  change,  how  was  amendment 
possible  ?  Feeble  as  was  the  present  league,  could  two-thirds  or 
even  twelve-thirteenths  of  the  States  have  given  validity  to 
one  or  two  new  articles,  the  Convention  of  1787  would  never 
have  met  which  framed  a  new  Constitution.  Nothing  saved 


1783.  ARTICLES   OF   CONFEDERATION.  17 

America  from  utter  perdition,  under  the  so-called  perpetual 
league,  but  a  coup  de  main.  Happily  the  revolution  which 
superseded  the  old  Articles  had  the  popular  sanction  and  was 
bloodless. 

While  these  Articles  of  Confederation  were  pending,  a 
strong  division  of  sentiment  became  manifest  between  the 
large  and  small  States.  Populous  and  wealthy  republics  by 
comparison,  like  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia, 
might  well  have  shrunk  from  an  alliance,  on  terms  which 
sunk  them  to  the  same  level  as  Delaware,  Georgia,  and  Rhode 
Island.  History  shows,  nevertheless,  that  in  a  controversy 
begun  before  Bunker's  Hill  was  fought,  it  was  the  larger 
States  that  courted,  while  the  smaller  ones  were  coy.  Repre 
sentation  *ou  a  popular  basis  the  small  States  refused  from  the 
first  to  permit;  their  sister  commonwealths,  they  said,  would 
be  influential  enough  in  the  general  council  without  it;  all 
were  fighting  for  existence,  and  what  would  independence  of 
the  king  avail  themselves  if  they  were  to  forsake  one  tyranny 
for  another?  Thus  was  gained  one  concession  from  the  large 
States.  Another,  but  of  positive  advantage  to  the  Union, 
Maryland  procured,  namely :  a  relmquishment  for  the  com 
mon  benefit  of  all  State  claims  to  Western  territory.  Mary 
land  refused  to  accede  to  the  confederacy  until  this  was  ac 
complished. 

The  era  of  Federal  construction  was  likewise  an  era  of  local 
reconstruction.  Each  Colony,  acting  upon  the  monition  of 
Congress,  adapted  itself  to  the  new  condition  of  free  and  inde 
pendent  States.  Colonial  charters  suggested  the  idea  of  a 
written  constitution,  and  indeed  for  many  years  Rhode  Island 
and  Connecticut  continued  each  to  use  the  royal  document  as 
the  sole  fundamental  law.  Some  State  constitutions,  hastily 
prepared,  proved  very  faulty  ;  but  that  of  Massachusetts,  the 
best  matured  of  them,  has,  with  occasional  amendment,  served 
the  State  a  full  century.  All  were  republican  in  form,  but 
none  strictly  democratic.  In  completely  separating  the  execu 
tive,  legislative,  and  judicial  departments,  and  erecting  a 
legislature  which  consisted  of  two  houses,*  these  local  cousti- 

"x"  Only  the  constitutions  of  Pennsylvania  and  Georgia  provided  a 
legislature  consisting  of  a  single  house. 
VOL.  i. — 2 


18  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

tutions  set  a  pattern  which  the  United  States  was  yet  to  fol 
low.  Human  equality  and  the  government  by  common  con 
sent  they  generally  recognized  in  express  terms.  So  engross 
ing  had  become  this  work  during  the  last  years  of  the  war  as 
to  provoke  complaint  that  the  men  who  ought  to  be  saving 
America  were  at-home  serving  their  own  States. 

War  with  the  mother  country  was  now  at  an  end.  Active 
hostilities  had  ceased  in  1781  with  the  surrender  of  Corn- 
wallis  at  Yorktown.  Assured  of  a  final  adjustment  at  Paris, 
which  would  secure  America's  independence,  Congress  pro 
claimed  peace  early  in  April,  and  on  the  eighth  anniversary 
of  the  Lexington  bloodshed  Washington's  general 

April  19.  ,  '     ,     ,       .        „   ,  Ai  •• 

orders  announced  the  joyful  news  to  the  patriot  army. 
The  final  treaty  was  signed  in  September.     Before 
the  close  of  the  year  our  disbanded  forces  had  dis 
persed  to  their  several  homes;  furnishing  to  the  world  the 
strange  spectacle  of  a  standing  army  sinking  like  raindrops 
to  refresh  instead  of  devastating  its  native  soil. 

Washington,  bidding  farewell  to  his  brave  comrades,  broke 
up  the  encampment  at  Newburg,  on  the  Hudson,  and  started 
homeward.     The  British   evacuation  of  the  town  of 
New  York  occupied  his  attention  several  days.     At 
a  tavern  near  Whitehall  Ferry  he  took  an  affectionate  leave 
of  his  principal  officers,  pledging  them  in  a  glass  of  wine,  and 
grasping  each  silently  by  the  hand.     His  progress  through 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland  was  hailed  with 
enthusiasm.     His  last  public  act  was  to  make  formal  resigna 
tion  of  his  commission  as  commander-in-chief ;  Congress  at 
this  time  holding  its  sessions  in  Annapolis.     President 
)ec.  23.   Mig|jnj  jn  tije  presence  Of  the  assembled  delegates 

and  a  large  body  of  spectators,  voiced  the  heart  of  the  people 
in  a  well-chosen  speech  on  receiving  the  parchment  into  his 
hands.  "You  retire  from  the  theatre  of  action,'*  said  he, 
"  with  the  blessings  of  your  fellow-citizens ;  but  the  glory  of 
your  virtues  will  not  terminate  with  your  military  command  ; 
it  will  continue  to  animate  remotest  ages."* 

*  4  Irving' s  Washington  ;  2  Holmes's  Annals. 


1783.  THE   CINCINNATI.  .  19 

Before  their  final  separation  the  officers  of  the  American 
army  had  organized  a  brotherhood,  styled,  from  their  familiar 
Roman  exemplar,  "  The  Cincinnati."  The  avowed  objects  of 
this  order  were  to  promote  and  cherish  national  honor  and 
union,  but  more  particularly  to  keep  the  war  memories  green 
.and  afford  mutual  succor.  Washington  was  unanimously 
chosen  president  of  the  order.  The  insignia  selected  was  a 
golden  American  eagle  with  emblematic  devices,  to  be  sus 
pended  by  a  deep-blue  ribbon  edged  with  white.  There  were 
to  be  State  societies  to  meet  each  fourth  of  July,  and  a  gen 
eral  society  to  hold  annual  meetings  in  May.  In  times  not 
remote  from  the  "Sons  of  Liberty,"  a  secret  organization  so 
extensive  might  fairly  be  suspected  of  political,  if  not  warlike 
proclivities,  and  certainly  the  Cincinnati  speedily  became  an 
object  of  popular  distrust.  What  chiefly  offended  the  public, 
however,  was  a  birthright  succession  in  favor  of  each  oldest 
male  descendant  of  an  officer,  added  to  which  was  a  provision 
for  conferring  a  limited  membership  upon  citizens  of  talent 
and  patriotism  in  the  respective  States.  It  was  charged  that 
the  founders  intended  to  create  a  privileged  and  hereditary 
class  in  America,  a  new  order  of  knighthood.  "  Melt  down 
your  eagles,"  was  the  cry.  Whether  because  of  this  violent 
assault  to  which  the  order  partially  succumbed  or  the  really 
harmless  designs  of  its  founders,  the  Cincinnati  exerted  but  a 
moderate  influence,  which  declined  with  years,  as  must  every 
society  formed  to  perpetuate  the  memories  of  a  war. 

With  the  loss  of  that  cohesive  principle  which  a  common 
danger  supplied  them,  the  United  States  now  began  to  drop 
asunder.  Even  before  the  scheme  of  confederation  had  been 
fully  realized,  keen-eyed  citizens  pointed  out  some  of  its  radical 
defects.  To  a  lack  of  adequate  authority  in  the  central  govern 
ment,  Washington  in  1781  ascribed  unhesitatingly  the  prolon 
gation  of  the  war  with  the  war  expenses, land  more  than  half 
of  his  own  perplexities.  Greene,  his  second  in  command,  who 
died  all  too  soon  to  become  a  leader  in  peace,  confirmed  this 
same  opinion.  States  had  not  ceased  to  assert  sovereignty 
while  the  red-coats  were  taking  it  from  them,  nor  to  embarrass 
the  movements  of  those  who  sped  with  relief.  Congress  had 


20  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

to  sugar-coat  every  requisition  for  men  and  measures  ;  and  the 
American  commander  found  himself  obliged  to  submit  its 
orders  to  a  provincial  legislature  to  execute.  When  Federal 
authority  would  have  taken  forcible  measures  to  disarm  the 
New  York  Tories,  local  authority  compelled  it  to  desist. 
The  extension  of  extraordinary  powers  to  Washington  had  to 
be  accompanied  by  an  apology  to  the  States.  Recruitment 
and  discipline  suffered  from  a  discrimination  among  the  troops 
which  the  confederacy  could  not  prevent;  for,  since  their  pay 
and  emoluments  depended  largely  upon  the  generosity  of  the 
several  States,  one  regiment  was  stinted,  while  another  would 
receive  large  bounties. 

During  the  last  three  years  of  the  war  the  Union  was  con 
stantly  struggling  to  maintain  the  army  and,  at  the  same  time, 
save  a  sinking  public  credit.  The  Continental  finances  were 
in  a  deplorable  condition,  while  States  seeking  separate  loans 
abroad,  and  themselves  harassed  with  debts  of  their  own  crea 
tion,  fell  in  arrears,  so  far  as  concerned  the  requisitions  of 
Congress  for  money  and  troops,  in  violation  of  their  solemn 
compact.  By  1781  the  Continental  currency  had  ceased  to 
circulate,  and  the  springs  of  Continental  credit  were  fast  drying 
up.  But  for  the  French  alliance  and  timely  loans  procured 
by  agents  in  Europe,  the  American  cause  would  have  grown 
desperate  ;  for  we  were  become  like  a  sick  man  fed  upon  stimu 
lants.  Our  troops  had  been  patient;  but  when  Congress,  in 
dire  distress,  failed  to  make  its  promise  of  pay  and  allowances 
good,  discontent  would  have  ripened  into  an  open  mutiny  had 
it  not  been  for  Washington's  prompt  and  discreet  action. 

A  single  instance  serves  to  illustrate  the  pitiful  depth  to 
which  Federal  authority  had  sunk  in  the  course  o,f  the  war. 
During  the  summer  of  1783  Congress  held  its  ses 
sion  at  Philadelphia,  when  some  eighty  deserters 
from  the  camp  at  Lancaster,  led  by  recreant  sergeants,  came 
straggling  into  town,  demanding  their  pay,  and  threatening  to 
seize  the  persons  of  delegates  or  else  break  into  the  bank  which 
held  the  Federal  deposits.  Permitted  by  the  local  authorities 
to  roam  at  large,  they  gathered  about  the  building  in  which 
Congress  was  assembled,  and  disturbed  its  proceedings  with 
ribaldry  and  drunken  insolence,  some  of  them  pointing  their 


1783.  MUTINEERS   INSULT   CONGRESS.  21 

muskets  at  the  windows.  Forming  in  two  lines  at  the  door 
when  the  body  adjourned,  they  made  the  members  pass  the 
gauntlet  of  their  menacing  insult.  Congress  had  promptly 
asked  the  State  executive  for  protection,  forewarned  of  the 
danger.  But  so  timid  was  the  response,  as  though  the  State 
could  not  lawfully  interpose  unless  the  rioters  proceeded  to 
open  violence,  and  so  lukewarm  appeared  the  townspeople, 
that  Congress  precipitately  retreated  across  the  river  into  New 
Jersey.  A  handful  of  mutineers,  without  a  commissioned 
officer  to  direct  them,  forced  a  removal  of  our  Federal  capital 
from  Philadelphia  to  Princeton.* 

Now  that  revolution  had  become  an  accomplished  fact,  three 
prime  causes  conspired  in  peace  to  send  the  confederacy  head 
long:  the  cessation  of  a  common  animating  purpose,  the  need 
felt  by  each  State  of  recuperating  its  own  exhausted  energies, 
and  certain  general  disorders  engendered  of  the  revolution 
itself.  The  disorganizing  forces  of  a  civil  war  are  long  felt 
before  society  can  knit  together  again.  Men's  minds,  cast  adrift 
from  the  old  moorings,  wandered  in  a  strange  fog.  To  habits 
of  thrift  and  economy  had  succeeded  a  spirit  of  speculation. 
There  were  upstarts  in  every  State,  enriched  by  privateering 
and  army  contracts,  while  old  families  were  ruined.  Tories 
had  fled,  and  their  estates  were  confiscated.  It  was  an  era  of 
paper  money,  inflated  values,  and  delusion. 

His  State,  not  the  Federal  Union,  was  the  Hercules  the  dis 
tressed  citizen  invoked  to  put  a  shoulder  to  the  wheel.  Was 
not  the  regulation  of  commerce  a  reserved  right  of  the  States 
not  less  than  that  of  agriculture  or  manufactures?  What 
rivalries,  what  clash  of  local  interests,  what  collisions  of  au 
thority,  must  there  not  have  been,  while  the  whole  tide-water 
from  the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  St.  Mary's  River  was  cut  up  and 
parcelled  out  among  thirteen  rival  sovereignties,  each  with  its 
own  revenue  laws  and  means  of  collection.  Did  one  State  fix 
a  high  tariff,  her  neighbor  would  invite  free  trade.  The 
commercial  States  obstructed  the  uncommercial ;  and  New 
Jersey,  lying  between  two  such  great  ports  as  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  was  likened  to  a  cask  tapped  at  both  ends. 

*  3  Madison's  Works ;  2  Holmes's  Annals ;  3  Hildreth's  United  States. 


22  HISTORY  OF  THE   UKITED  STATES.       CHAP.  I. 

Without  authority  to  regulate  commerce,  Congress  found 
the  treaty-making  power  conferred  upon  it  of  little  practical 
avail.  Discrimination  between  friend  and  foe  in  the  grant 
of  commercial  privileges  was  attempted  in  vain.  On  the 
principle  of  reciprocity  the  United  States  treated  with  France, 
Sweden,  the  Netherlands,  and  Prussia,  all  of  which  nations 
sympathized  with  our  cause.  But  surly  England,  giving 
nothing  and  offering  nothing,  pushed  in  greedily  to  regain  all 
she  could  without  a  treaty.  No  sooner  was  peace  declared  than 
British  manufactured  goods  began  pouring  into  the  country; 
British  agencies  were  promptly  established  at  the  chief  cen 
tres  of  trade.  And  while  our  late  enemy  played  off  the  rival 
ries  of  her  late  Colonies  for  her  own  advantage,  secretly  hoping 
they  would  soon  drop  apart,  she  shut  the  door  upon  their 
former  lucrative  trade  with  the  West  Indies.  Our  minister 
at  London,  John  Adams,  was  treated  with  cold  affront,  and 
no  British  ambassador  was  sent  in  return.  When  American 
commissioners  sought  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with 
Great  Britain,  they  were  asked  contemptuously  whether  they 
brought  credentials  from  Congress  alone  or  from  the  separate 
States  besides. 

Our  financial  condition,  too,  was  gloomy.  When  the  ac 
counts  of  the  war  were  cast  up,  an  immense  war  debt  due 
from  the  United  States  appeared,  some  of  whose  certificates 
were  held  abroad,  but  by  far  the  larger  part  by  its  own  citi 
zens.  To  fund  that  debt  was  at  present  impossible ;  yet  could 
the  interest  be  regularly  met,  creditors  would  not  be  clamor 
ous.  The  payment  of  this  interest  and  the  maintenance  of  a 
moderate  peace  establishment  reduced  the  money  necessities 
of  the  Union  to  a  minimum.  To  meet  such  an  annual  outlay 
what  were  the  resources  at  command?  Not  impost,  excise,  or 
the  assessment  of  a  direct  tax  upon  the  people ;  nothing  but 
periodical  requisitions  made  upon  sovereign  States  for  their 
proportional  contribution.  Congress  was  to  make  its  demand, 
and  each  State  was  solemnly  bound,  under  the  Articles  of  Con 
federation,  to  supply  the  money,  levying  and  collecting  at 
pleasure  within  its  own  jurisdiction.  But  what  if  a  State  re 
fused  or  neglected  to  honor  the  requisition ;  had  Congress  a 
remedy  ?  None  whatever,  unless  perchance  to  coerce  the  de- 


1783.  CONFEDERATE   EMBARRASSMENT.  23 

linquent  State ;  and  this  meant  civil  war  and  a  bloody  disso 
lution.  There  was  no  judicial  enforcement  of  the  compact; 
not  a  private  individual  could  be  seized,  nor  his  property  at 
tached  because  of  his  State's  default.  What  then  was  the 
experience  of  the  United  States  under  this  system  of  State 
requisitions?  Congress  from  1782  to  1786  made  calls  amount 
ing  in  the  aggregate  to  more  than  $6,000,000,  of  which  sum 
only  $1,000,000  had  been  paid  into  the  Federal  treasury  at  the 
close  of  March,  1787.  To  meet  the  interest  on  our  foreign  debt 
temporary  loans  had  to  be  negotiated  abroad  at  exorbitant 
rates ;  our  people,  it  was  said,  were  becoming  a  prey  to  every 
robber,  pirate,  and  cheat  in  Europe.*  As  concerned  the  do 
mestic  creditors,  who  might  be  put  off  with  less  peril,  interest 
went  altogether  unpaid.  Federal  securities  changed  hands 
at  less  than  half  their  face  value,  rating  sometimes  as  low  as 
fifteen  per  cent.;  Congress  meantime  exhausting  persuasion 
upon  the  delinquent  Federal  members.  As  each  State  was 
harassed  with  its  own  war  debts,  it  cannot  be  thought  strange 
that  under  the  circumstances  State  credit  received  the  first 
thought.  The  delinquency  of  one  State  was  set  up,  moreover, 
to  justify  the  delinquency  of  another.  The  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  made  each  community  selfish. 

Such  was  the  central  rule  of  exhortation,  the  arch  whose  key 
stone  was  an  unenforceable  promise.  Solemnly  bound  to  per 
form  functions  indispensable  to  the  general  welfare,  dragged 
down  by  obligations  sacredly  contracted  on  behalf  of  the  whole 
people,  who  could  relieve  a  perishing  Union  of  this  body  of 
death?  Congress  kept  the  vessel  from  sinking;  but  it  was 
"  by  standing  constantly  at  the  pump,  not  by  stopping  the 
leaks."! 

This  downward  course  of  things  in  America  arrested  the 
attention  of  thoughtful  citizens.  It  was  quickly  perceived 
that  unless  Congress  could  procure  two  things,  authority  to 
regulate  foreign  commerce  and  power  to  collect  a  Federal 
revenue,  the  situation  was  desperate.  To  accomplish  these 
objects  peaceably,  one  of  two  courses  was  indispensable :  either 

*  8  John  Adams's  Works,  400.  f  2  Rives's  Madison,  41. 


24  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

to  procure  an  amendment  to  the  Articles  by  unanimous  con 
sent  of  the  States,  or  else,  recurring  to  first  principles,  to  call 
upon  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  assemble  in  conven 
tion  and  take  national  reconstruction  into  their  own  hands. 
The  idea  of  a  convention  was  not  new  when  peace  was  de 
clared  ;  for  it  was  put  forth  as  early  as  1780,  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Eastern  States,  which  had  convened  to  consider  military 
embarrassments  ;  in  a  pamplet  written  by  one  Pelatiah  Web 
ster,  and  published  in  1781 ;  again  in  1782  by  the  legislature 
of  New  York.  But  drastics  so  violent  were  only  for  the  last 
stage  of  disease ;  hence  the  first  experiment  of 
amendment.  Congress  in  1781  proposed  to  the 
States  a  new  article,  empowering  it  to  levy  for  the  use  of 
the  United  States  a  five  per  cent,  duty  on  imports  ;  the  money 
so  raised  to  go  towards  discharging  the  Revolutionary  debt, 
and  the  power  to  cease  when  that  debt  was  discharged.  To 
this  amendment  Rhode  Island  refused  her  assent,  and  that  of 
Virginia,  once  given,  was  afterwards  withdrawn.* 

Two  young  men  now  appear  upon  the  scene,  whose  six 
years  of  united  labor  did  more  for  establishing  our  present 
constitutional  union  than  the  work  of  a»y  other  ten  Amer 
icans,  Washington,  perhaps,  excepted,  in  whom  both  confided, 
and  whose  prodigious  personal  influence  was  discreetly  used 
to  promote  their  ends.  These  were  Alexander  Hamilton,  of 
New  York,  and  James  Madison,  of  Virginia;  each  represent 
ing  a  powerful  State  averse  to  Federal  aggrandizement,  which 
must  nevertheless  be  won  over ;  and  both  at  the  threshold 
of  a  great  national  career. 

The  younger,  and  undoubtedly  the  more  brilliant  of  the 
two,  was  Hamilton,  a  man  of  slight  figure  but  strongly  im 
pressive  presence,  erect  in  bearing,  singularly  self-possessed, 
having  the  air  of  a  Coesar.  His  face  was  a  handsome  one, 
such  as  dangerously  captivates  ladies,  and  beamed  with  intel 
ligence  ;  he  had  an  eye  piercing  and  expressive,  a  firm-set 
mouth  which  betokened  promptness  and  decision  of  character, 
an  open  and  fearless  countenance.  His  was  one  of  those  rare 

*  10  Bancroft,  407,  408;  Madison's  Introd.  to  Federal  Debates,  1 
Madison's  Writings,  118. 


1781-82.  HAMILTON   AND   MADISON.  25 

minds  whence  leap  ideas  clad  in  full  armor.  He  would  not 
only  unfold  a  plan  of  his  own  so  as  to  present  the  strongest 
arguments  for  its  adoption,  but  anticipate  every  objection  and 
counterplan  which  others  would  be  likely  to  urge  against  it. 
His  talent  as  an  administrator  was  remarkable ;  neither  prin 
ciple  nor  detail  escaped  him  ;  he  conceived  and  executed  with 
equal  facility.  This  mind  of  marvellous  fertility,  this  self- 
confidence  which  inspired  by  its  audacity,  were  the  endowments 
of  a  youth  as  yet  scarcely  turned  of  twenty-five.  But  this 
prodigy,  the  idol  of  aristocratic  circles  in  New  York,  and  a 
recognized  leader  of  the  American  bar,  was  weighted  in  the 
race  for  public  honors  as  precocious  men  are  apt  to  be,  by  his 
own  excess  of  confidence,  his  impetuosity,  and  the  disposition 
to  force  rather  than  inculcate  the  measures  upon  which  he  had 
set  his  heart.  He  had  not  great  tact,  but  set  his  foot  con 
temptuously  to  work  the  treadles  of  slower  minds.  Hence 
Hamilton  devised  better  than  he  could  bring  to  pass,  and, 
wounding  the  pride  of  rivals  whose  co-operation  was  indis 
pensable  to  success,  he  got  unhorsed  when  he  should  have 
been  spurring  on.  His  political  following  was  always  strong, 
but  lie  suffered  that  of  his  opponents  to  become  stronger, 
which  proved  his  own  bad  generalship. 

But  more  than  this,  Hamilton  was  not  a  stanch  believer 
in  republics  or  the  American  experiment.  He  was  not  Amer 
ican,  but  a  Briton  transplanted  and  fed  upon  Plutarch.  An 
alien,  of  obscure  parentage  in  the  British  West  Indies,  and 
one  of  desultory  training,  he  remained,  except  for  the  influ 
ences  of  his  ancient  heroes,  British  in  temperament  through 
life,  an  adapter  of  British  institutions  and  methods,  like  a 
tailor  who  fits  different  coats  from  the  same  pattern.  Equality, 
social  or  political,  he  did  not  relish,  though  he  was  a  friend  of 
nogro  emancipation.  He  wished  "good  men,"  as  he  termed 
them,  to  rule;  meaning  the  wealthy,  the  well-born,  the  so 
cially  eminent,  like  those  among  whom  he  moved  in  his 
adopted  city.  No  aristocrat  is  more  confirmed  than  one  ad 
mitted  into  the  charmed  circle,  whose  own  kindred  are  at  a 
convenient  distance ;  and  Hamilton's  claim  to  social  recogni 
tion  no  Whig  could  dispute  after  Washington  had  taken  him 
into  his  military  family,  and  Schuyler  given  him  a  daughter 

VOL.    1.— 3 


26  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

in  marriage.  Hamilton  had  a  high  sense  of  honor,  cer 
tainly,  an  ambition  which  respected  the  verdict  of  history. 
His  ideal  of  government  was  not,  however,  a  high  one ;  for  he 
believed  that  mankind  were  to  be  managed  and  cajoled  by 
some  magnanimous  ruler.  Crude  suggestions  like  these  per 
vaded  his  best  schemes  of  civil  polity  ;  confirming  an  impres 
sion  which  careless  conversations  might  have  confirmed,  that 
Hamilton  was  at  heart  a  despiser  of  commonplace  happiness, 
a  hero-worshipper,  a  monarchist.  And  indeed  there  was  that 
about  him  which  might  perhaps  have  rendered  him  a  dan 
gerous  man  under  European  surroundings;  for,  besides  rating 
his  military  above  his  civil  qualities,  Hamilton  displayed 
self-will,  a  certain  capriciousness  of  temper,  an  unquenchable 
thirst  for  glory  and  distinction,  and  a  tendency  to  fatalism 
and  the  romance  of  manifest  destiny.  But  Hamilton's  am 
bition  was  noble,  incapable  of  mean  intrigue  for  the  sake  of 
personal  advancement ;  and  the  dream  of  empire  could  only 
be  fulfilled  when  the  crisis  demanded  the  man.  That  crisis 
never  came  ;  and  for  moving  a  world  whose  leverage  was  the 
average  sense  of  the  people,  one  of  this  temper  could  hope 
for  little  opportunity. 

A  far  different  man  was  Madison  ;  six  years  Hamilton's 
senior,  and  yet  a  young  leader  for  so  crowded  an  hour.  He, 
too,  was  of  tinder-stature,  and  when  starched  up  to  his  full 
dignity  had  not  a  little  primness  of  aspect.  His  manners 
were  reserved  and  shy,  like  one  given  to  serious  contempla 
tion  ;  the  color  of  his  cheeks  came  and  went ;  strangers  were 
impressed  by  him  as  by  some  plain  gentleman  farmer.  But 
entering  Congress  young,  Madison  was  not  long  in  convincing 
his  colleagues  of  his  real  sterling  qualities,  industry,  method, 
patience,  soundness  of  judgment,  calmness  of  temper,  and 
unimpeachable  integrity.  His  leadership  was  all  the  more 
readily  conceded  by  elders,  none  of  whom  were  superiors,  inas 
much  as  he  was  perceived  to  be  a  youth  of  singular  modesty 
and  discretion.  Unlike  Hamilton,  Madison  was  a  man  of 
peace,  whose  sole  ambition  was  directed  to  the  pursuit  of 
civil  administration  under  American  methods.  American- 
born,  the  scion  of  an  influential  family  in  the  Old  Dominion, 
educated  at  Princeton  College, — the  nursery,  in  that  era,  of 


1781-82  HAMILTON  AND  MADISON. 


27 


American  statesmen,— a  man  of  independent  means,  he  was  a 
product  thoroughly  indigenous;  and  having  joined  the  new 
school  of  aristo-dernocrats  in  his  native  State  to  become  a 
disciple  and  favorite  of  Jefferson,  it  is  not  strange  that  he 
devoted  his  talents  to  public  life,  nor  that  so  doing,  he  was  on 
the  highroad  to  success.      There  was  none  of  that  personal 
magnetism  in  Madison,  such  as  warmed  men's  hearts  to  Ham 
ilton  or  Jefferson,  but  neither  did  he  repel,  and  the  respect  of 
his  opponents  he  rarely  lost.     As  a  debater,  Madison  moved 
others  by  his  lucid,  dispassionate,  judicial  style  of  reasoning, 
not  by  his  fiery  appeal.     His  espousal  of  reform  was  directed 
to  plucking  the  fruit  as  it  ripened ;  he  seemed,  indeed,  an 
umpire  at  this  era,  rather  than  a  party-man,  feeling,  to  use 
his  favorite  expression,  for  some  middle  ground.     Madison's 
art  strongly  contrasted   with  Hamilton's  vanity  of  author 
ship  ;  for  while  the  latter  deferred  little  to  counsel,  and  would 
have  his  propositions  swallowed  whole,  labelled  with  his  name, 
his  more  prudent  compeer,  aiming  most  of  all  to  carry  his 
point,  took  the  constant  advice  of  those  who  wished  to  be  con 
sulted,  and  put  others  forward  to  introduce  as  their  own  meas 
ures,  palliated  if  need  be,  what  himself  had  prepared.     Medi 
ocrity  which  forbears  will  win   more  in  politics  than  a  genius 
which  irritates ;  but  Madison,  though  a  statesman  of  inferior 
fibre  to  Hamilton,  was  far  above  the  average.     The  danger 
was,  that  a  youth  of  such  sobriety  might  effloresce  into  a 
tasteless  and  timid  manhood. 

The  complement  of  two  such  minds  was  most  aus 
picious  for  the  country.  The  cause  in  which  they  1781"82> 
now  heartily  conjoined,  as  never  in  later  years,  was  that  of  pro 
curing  a  federal  government  with  powers  commensurate  with 
the  needs  of  the  country.  Hamilton,  too  much  of  a  vagabond 
hero  to  have  grown  up  strongly  attached  to  any  particular 
State,  inclined  strongly  to  centralism,  an  energetic  govern 
ment  strongly  administered.  "It  has  ever  been  my  opinion," 
he  had  written  in  1781,  "that  Congress  ought  to  have  com 
plete  sovereignty  in  all  but  the  mere  municipal  law  of  each 
State;  and  I  wish  to  see  a  convention  of  all  the  States,  with 
full  power  to  amend  finally  and  irrevocably  the  present  futile 
and  senseless  confederation."  His  hand  appears  in  a  resolu- 


28  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

tion  of  the  New  York  legislature  of  1782,  which  invited  the 
States  to  a  general  conference  with  this  object  in  view.  Madi 
son,  on  the  other  hand,  a  recognized  leader  in  Congress  by 
the  time  Hamilton  arrived  that  year,  and  the  loyal  delegate 
of  a  proud  State  which  looked  upon  convention  schemes  with 
distrust,  was  working  toward  the  same  conclusion  by  a  dif 
ferent  process.  Defects  in  the  existing  league,  which  Hamil 
ton's  quick  intuition  penetrated,  Madison  undertook  to  demon 
strate  by  the  sure  test  of  induction.  He  watched  anxiously 
the  current  of  events,  and,  pressing  for  the  present  only  at  the 
door  of  constitutional  amendment,  drafted  a  report  of  Congress, 
which  proposed  that  the  States  should  clothe  the  Union  with 
plenary  power  to  compel  any  delinquent  member  of  the  con 
federacy  to  fulfil  its  Federal  engagements.  Tentative  and  cau 
tious  by  nature,  and  bearing,  moreover,  an  important  respon 
sibility  in  the  administration  of  affairs,  Madison  took  care  to 
commit  himself  in  public  only  to  what  was  presently  feasible.* 
By  the  time  Hamilton  took  his  seat,  Congress 
holding  sessions  in  Philadelphia,  the  failure  of  the 
proposed  amendment  for  a  five  per  cent,  duty  was  certain. 
Hamilton  and  Madison  joined  in  signing  the  Federal  remon 
strance  against  Ehode  Island's  rejection  of  the  plan  ;  Hamil 
ton  drafting  the  document.  The  next  year  a  new 
proposition  was  submitted  for  the  adoption  of  the 
States,  namely,  that  Congress  should  be  empowered,  not  indef 
initely,  but  for  twenty-five  years,  to  levy  the  desired  import 
duty ;  and  this  not  for  discharging  the  principal  of  the  Kevo- 
lutionary  debt,  but  only  to  meet  the  interest  as  it  accrued. 
The  plan  was  reported  from  a  committee  consisting  of  Ham 
ilton,  Madison,  and  Ellsworth  of  Connecticut.  An  address  to 
the  States,  penned  by  Madison,  accompanied  this  proposal,  on 
whose  unanimous  acceptance  hung,  as  it  were  by  a  hair,  the 
fate  of  the  confederacy.  A  political  reaction  in  his  own  State, 
which  brought  the  anti-conventionists  into  power,  now  de 
prived  Hamilton  of  his  seat,  and  Madison  soon  after  absented 
himself  from  Congress  for  a  brief  interval. f 

*  10  Bancroft ;  2  John  C.  Hamilton's  United  States ;  I  Kives's  Madi 
son,  f  Ib. 


1783-85.  PLANS    FOR    RECONSTRUCTION.  29 

The  idea  of  a  convention  had  now  sunk  deeply  178^_81 
into  the  popular  mind;  but  until  the  fate  of  the 
modified  revenue  amendment  was  settled,  no  action  could  be 
expected  in  that  direction.  Massachusetts,  after  recommend 
ing,  under  the  lead  of  her  intrepid  Bowdoiu,  that  a  general 
convention  be  called,  retreated  upon  the  advice  of  her  dele 
gates  in  Congress.  New  York,  once  favorable,  now  threatened 
the  most  stubborn  resistance  to  every  new  encroachment  upon 
State  rights.  The  rising  commerce  of  her  metropolis  made  her 
selfish.  Madison,  now  in  the  Virginia  legislature,  found  his 
ablest  colleagues  determined  to  prevent  any  general  revision 
of  the  Articles. 

The  prominence  of  Madison  and  Hamilton  at  this  date  was 
favored  by  the  singular  dearth  of  famous  popular  leaders  for 
the  pregnant  occasion.  Otis  was  dead.  Patrick  Henry's  in 
fluence  helped  to  swell  State  pride,  and  so  did  that  of  Clinton. 
Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams  appeared  lukewarm  Unionists, 
better  able  to  pull  down  than  build  up,  and  both  were  for  tha 
time  in  retirement.  Jefferson  and  John  Adams  had  diplo 
matic  posts  abroad.  The  aged  Franklin,  just  returning  from 
his  famous  mission  at  France  to  find  himself  elected  chief 
executive  of  Pennsylvania  under  an  ill-jointed  constitution, 
had  enough  care  in  holding  that  distracted  commonwealth 
together.  Of  all  the  patriots  who  had  been  foremost  in  the 
cause  of  independence  only  John  Jay  and  Robert  Morris  re 
mained  in  the  home  service,  and  they  in  such  routine  employ 
ment  as  forbade  the  attempt  of  either  to  direct  a  popular 
movement.  Washington  himself,  not  unconscious  of  his  sur 
passing  influence,  was  too  delicate  and  discreet  a  man  to  con 
duct  a  popular  revolution  whose  most  likely  issue  would  be  to 
place  him  at  the  head  of  affairs  ;  and,  keeping  in  reserve,  he 
left  others  to  guide,  particularly  his  two  young  friends,  one  of 
whom  he  was  connected  with  by  neighborly  ties,  and  the  other 
he  loved  like  an  own  son.  In  private  correspondence  he- 
avowed  himself  in  favor  of  liberal  amendments;  or,  as  a  last 
resort,  the  convention. 

Massachusetts  and  New  York  falling  back,  Virginia  now 
took  the  lead  in  those  practical  measures  which  led  to  Federal 
reconstruction.  But  the  famous  Convention  of  1787  was  quite 


30  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I, 

indirectly  obtained.  A  meeting  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  com 
missioners  at  Alexandria  in  the  spring  of  1785,  for  adjusting 
their  mutual  rights  in  the  Chesapeake  and  Potomac  waters, 
was  skiliiiiiy  turned  by  Madison,  one  of  their  number,  to  pro 
curing  a  new  conference  for  the  following  year,  which  other 
States  should  be  invited  to  attend,  the  primary  object  being 
to  seek  by  the  mutual  concession  of  States  such  a  uniform  com 
mercial  system  as  might  best  promote  their  mutual  interests.* 
Acting  upon  the  advice  of  the  commissioners,  the  legislature 
of  Maryland  asked  her  neighbors,  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania, 
to  attend,  while  that  of  Virginia  extended  the  invitation  so  as  to 
embrace  all  of  the  States.  This  meeting  was  set  for  September 
llth,  1786,  at  Annapolis. 

Though  in  the  growing  desperation  of  affairs  public  senti 
ment  in  favor  of  a  convention  was  constantly  strengthening, 
the  new  conference  was  unlikely  to  achieve  much  in  that 
respect.  To  Madison's  chagrin,  the  Virginia  legislature  would 
not  extend  the  call  in  such  terms  as  to  justify  any  general  de 
liberation  on  the  state  of  the  Union.  The  friends  of  Conti 
nental  reform  concluded,  therefore,  to  make  this  Annapolis 
meeting  subservient  to  a  second  convention  with  plenary 
powers.  To  this  attainment  Madison,  now  an  avowed  con- 
ventiouist,  worked  with  great  energy ;  though  the  attempt 
seemed  discouraging,  first,  to  bring  delegates  from  all  the 
States  together,  next,  to  procure  their  assent  to  a  new 
scheme  of  union,  and,  finally,  to  persuade  the  separate  States 
and  Congress  to  accept  their  work.  Of  the  many  prominent 
men,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  associated  with  him  in  giv 
ing  the  conference  this  direction,  was  Hamilton,  whose  efforts 
procured  New  York's  sanction  to  the  conference  and  his  own 
appointment  as  a  delegate.  From  the  Middle  States,  gener 
ally,  and  New  England,  delegates  were  chosen  ;  but  south  of 
Virginia  no  State  took  action.  To  complete  these  prepara 
tions  Madison  took  a  horseback  journey  in  midsummer  to  New 
York,  where  Congress  was  in  session. 

-*  In  the  course  of  this  conference  the  commissioners  made  an  excur 
sion  to  Mount  Vernon,  and  had  an  extended  interview  with  Washing 
ton.  But  whether  this  had  any  historical  significance,  or  was  a  mere 
visit  of  courtesy,  is  not  known.  See  1  Madison's  Writings  (1785). 


178G-87.          THE   ANNAPOLIS   CONFERENCE.  31 

But  after  all  the  pains  taken,  only  twelve  dele-  &>pt.ii, 
gates  assembled  at  Annapolis  at  the  appointed  time. 
New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Vir 
ginia  were  the  sole  States  represented  :  the  trunk  of  the  Union 
with  limbs  torn  off.  Even  Maryland  had  deserted  the  confer 
ence  in  this  new  form.  Twelve  men  might  constitute  an  ordi 
nary  jury,  but  they  hardly  sufficed  for  holding  high  inquest 
upon  a  confederacy  of  thirteen  States.  Hamilton  and  Madi 
son  were  both  present,  however ;  and  the  meeting,  held  to  its 
appointed  work,  united,  before  adjourning,  in  a  formal  recom 
mendation  to  all  the  States  to  send  delegates  to  another  con 
vention,  which  should  meet  in  Philadelphia  on  the  14th  of 
May  following,  to  consider  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and 
to  devise  such  measure  as  might  render  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion  "adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union."  A  stirring 
address  to  accompany  this  proposal  was  drafted  by  Hamilton. 
Washington  had  been  fully  informed  by  Madison  of  the  pro 
gress  of  the  cause,  and,  watching  the  Annapolis  proceedings 
from  Mount  Veriion  with  much  solicitude,  he  noted  the  ab 
sence  of  the  New  England  delegates  and  inquired  the  cause.* 

Thus  circuitous  was  the  path  which  now  struck 

1/86-87. 

into  a  highway  towards  the  more  perfect  union. 
And  yet  the  Philadelphia  Convention  might  never  have  as 
sembled  had  not  the  tempest,  bursting  in  full  force  soon  after 
the  delegates  at  Annapolis  had  dispersed,  set  the  weak  craft 
of  our  confederacy  so  rolling,  pitching,  and  creaking  in  every 
joint  and  seam,  that  the  people  by  a  common  impulse  headed 
her  in  thither  as  upon  a  lee  shore. 

Abroad  and  at  home  the  Union  was  fast  becoming  disrepu 
table.  It  fretted  our  European  allies  that  treaties  which 
promised  so  much  could  yield  so  little.  Great  Britain,  still 
bent  on  keeping  her  late  Colonies  disunited,  had  now  point 
edly  refused  to  give  up  the  Western  posts,  as  the  treaty  of 
peace  bound  her  to  do,  alleging  infractions  on  our  part. 
Spain  was  .insidiously  laboring  on  our  southwestern  border  to 

*  See  1  Madison's  Writings ;  3  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic ;  2  Eives's 
Madison;  9  Washington's  Writings. 


32  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

divert  the  allegiance  of  settlers  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  who, 
in  common  with  the  Southern  States,  had  become  inflamed 
over  a  project  pending  before  Congress  to  barter  our  rights  in 
the  Mississippi  for  certain  commercial  privileges  mainly  ad 
vantageous  to  the  North. 

Sectional  rivalry  increased.  States  which  once  moved  in  solid 
phalanx  now  warred  upon  one  another.  Connecticut  taxed 
Massachusetts  imports  higher  than  British.  Weighed  down 
with  debts,  nearly  every  sovereignty  was  on  the  verge  of  repu 
diation,  the  contagion  of  a  bad  Federal  example  in  this  re 
spect  being  almost  irresistible.  Requisitions  lay  unheeded. 
The  utter  impotence  of  Congress  to  enforce  its  legitimate 
authority  stimulated  disobedience.  New  Jersey  bluntly  re 
fused  to  supply  her  quota.  Georgia  proposed  sending  com 
missioners  of  her  own  to  negotiate  with  the  Spanish  governor 
at  New  Orleans.  Other  States  arrogated  the  function  of 
treating  with  adjacent  Indian  tribes.  So  strong  were  the 
symptoms  of  general  dissatisfaction  that  no  rumor  of  sectional 
plots  and  combinations  seemed  too  wild  for  belief. 

And  now  as  the  confederacy  begins  to  break  asunder,  States 
themselves  yawn  open.  Vermont  and  Kentucky  sought  ad 
mission  as  independent  States,  for  which  condition  each  was 
well  fitted.  But  the  inhabitants,  besides,  of  the  Maine  district 
wished  to  break  loose  from  Massachusetts;  Pennsylvania's 
western  frontiers  were  in  chronic  turbulence ;  while  a  forcible 
disruption  threatened  North  Carolina,  whose  mountain  popu 
lation  had  began  organizing  the  new  State  of  "  Fraukland," 
which  bordering  Virginia  counties  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge  were 
preparing  to  join. 

But  the  two  events  decisive  of  the  proposed  convention  were 
these:  (1.)  The  Shays  Rebellion  in  Massachusetts;  (2.)  The 
failure  of  the  proposed  impost  amendment. 

(1.)  The  Shays  Rebellion,  which  takes  its  name  from  the 
leader  of  the  insurgents,  Daniel  Shay?,  lately  a  captain  in  the 
Continental  army,  had  its  taproot  in  the  growing  spirit  of 
lawlessness.  But  special  causes  of  discontent  were  traceable 
to  an  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  and  excessive  laud  taxa 
tion  in  Massachusetts,  the  sole  seat  of  the  outbreak.  Governor 


178G-87.  THE   SHAYS    REBELLICfl?.  33 

Bowdoin  and  his  party  strove  vigorously  to  reduce  the  State 
debt  and  keep  up  the  public  credit  at  a  period  of  great  public 
depression.  But  this  strained  severely  the  farmers  and  citi 
zens  of  moderate  means  in  the  inland  towns.  Private  credi 
tors  pressed  their  debtors,  while  the  State  pressed  all.  At 
tachments  were  put  upon  the  poor  man's  cattle  and  teams,  and 
his  little  homestead  was  sacrificed  under  the  sheriff's  hammer. 
It  was  no  sign  of  prosperity  that  the  dockets  of  the  county 
courts  were  crowded,  and  that  lawyers  and  court  officers  put 
in  the  sickle.  There  was  common  complaint  of  the  high  sala 
ries  of  public  officials  and  the  wasteful  cost  attending  litiga 
tion. 

One  might  suppose  that  a  legislature  annually  chosen  would 
soon  remedy  this  state  of  things.  But  the  inhabitants  of  the 
western  counties  took  the  short  cut  of  resisting  civil  process 
and  openly  defying  the  laws.  And  herein  their  error  lay. 
Shays  rallied  so  large  a  force  of  malcontents  about  Worcester 
in  the  fall  of  1786  that  the  sheriff  and  his  deputies  were  pow 
erless  against  them,  and  no  court  could  be  held. 

Our  most  serious  political  outbreaks  have  thus  far  occurred, 
not  so  much  at  large  centres  of  population,  as  in  the  sparse  and 
rural  districts.  There  the  machinery  is  not  so  well  regulated 
for  overawing  the  criminal  and  disorderly,  resistance  spreads 
over  a  larger  surface,  and  men,  honest  of  purpose,  are  found 
more  impatient  of  discipline.  This  first  success  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  insurgents  alarmed  the  friends  of  order  throughout  the 
Union.  "  What,  gracious  God,  is  man,"  exclaims  Washing 
ton  on  hearing  the  news  from  the  East,  "  that  there  should  be 
such  inconsistency  and  perfidiousness  in  his  conduct !  It  was 
but  the  other  day  that  we  were  shedding  our  blood  to  obtain 
the  constitutions  under  which  we  now  live, — constitutions  of  our 
own  choice  and  making, — and  now  we  are  unsheathing  the 
sword  to  overturn  them." 

Congress,  by  this  time  an  adept  in  stealthy  and  diplomatic 
methods,  offered  secret  aid  to  the  authorities  of  Massachusetts 
upon  the  pretext  of  dispatching  troops  against  the  Indians. 
But  the  tender  was  not  accepted  ;  for  in  James  Bowdoin  the 
State  had  an  executive  equal  to  the  emergency.  Availing 
himself  of  a  temporary  loan  from  patriotic  citizens,  he  raised 


34  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I, 

and  equipped  a  militia  force,  large  enough  to  overawe  the 
rebels,  which,  under  General  Lincoln's  command,  was  promptly 
marched  against  them.  Shays  appears  to  have  had  more  of 
the  demagogue  than  warrior  about  him,  and  his  followers  fled 
as  the  troops  advanced.  By  midwinter  civil  order  was  re 
stored  ;  but  the  legislature  made  some  concessions  not  less  just 
than  prudent.  The  vanquished  rebels  were  treated  with  marked 
clemency.  But  Governor  Bowdoin's  energy  lost  him  a  re 
election  the  following  spring,  and  one  of  the  manliest  pio 
neers  of  Continental  reform  was  remitted  to  private  life  for  the 
rest  of  his  days.  To  him  succeeded  the  veteran  Hancock, 
whose  light  shone  through  a  horn-lantern  of  vanity  and  love 
of  popular  applause.* 

(2.)  The  failure  of  the  proposed  impost  amendment  was  the 
next  event  to  occupy  the  public  mind  during  the  momentous 
interval  between  the  Annapolis  conference  and  the  time  set 
for  the  Philadelphia  convention.  The  proposition  of  1783,  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  placed  the  necessities  of  Congress 
before  the  States  as  modestly  as  possible,  and  hence  was  un 
derstood  to  be  a  last  appeal  ou  behalf  of  the  confederate  league. 
When,  in  1786,  Congress  found  that  four  States,  Georgia, 
Maryland,  Rhode  Island,  and  New  York,  still  withheld  their 
sanction,  the  other  nine  having  acquiesced  in  the  change,  a 
special  address  was  sent  out,  declaring  the  accession  of  all  the 
States  to  be  "  the  sole  means  of  preserving  the  sacred  faith  of 
the  confederacy."  Three  of  these  dilatory  States  through  their 
legislatures  now  took  favorable  action  ;  but  New  York,  cling 
ing  to  the  policy  of  regulating  her  own  commerce,  still  refused. 
When  the  new  year  opened,  Clinton  convened  the 
legislature  in  the  thriving  city  of  New  York,  where 
likewise  met  the  feeble  body  of  Continental  delegates,  whose 
quorum  of  nine  States  could  not  be  mustered  until  the  middle 
of  February.  The  impost  amendment  now  came 
before  the  State  legislature  for  final  action,  and, 
as  had  been  anticipated,  rejection  was  carried  by  a  large  ma 
jority.  Only  with  reservations  which  made  the  grant  nugatory 

*  9  Washington's  Writings ;  1  Madison's  Writings;   3  Ilildreth;   2 
Rives's  Madison  ;  2  J.  C.  Hamilton's  .Republic. 


1787.  IMPOST   AMENDMENT    FAILS.  35 

would  New  York  sanction  the  change.  One  State  among  the 
whole  thirteen  blocked  the  wheels  of  the  confederacy  ;  but 
eventually,  as  we  shall  see,  at  a  much  greater  sacrifice  of 
commercial  independence  than  she  now  refused  to  make. 

Congress  had  no  choice  left  but  to  lend  its  good-will  to  the 
Philadelphia  convention.     To  this  conclusion  it  was  brought 
under  the  skilful  management  of  Madison,  again  a 
delegate,  and  Hamilton,  as  an  influential   private 
citizen,  six  days  after  the  adverse  decision  of  the  New  York 
legislature. 

But  without  waiting  for  this  new  direction  of  events,  Vir 
ginia,  true  to  her  antecedents,  had  led  off  the  November  pre 
vious  in  commending  to  her  sister  States  the  Annapolis  action. 
This  again  Madison  had  accomplished,  at  that  time  in  the 
State  legislature;  making  free  use  of  an  autograph  letter  from 
Washington,  which  expressed  an  earnest  wish  that  "  Virginia 
would  take  the  lead  in  promoting  the  great  and  arduous  work 
of  reconstruction."  When  Virginia  lifted  the  golden  roll  of 
her  delegation,  and  showed  the  patriot  commander  at  the 
head  of  the  column,  the  whole  country  thrilled  with  joy.  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  North  Carolina,  and  Delaware  now  fell 
in  promptly  ;  the  Quaker  State  inscribing  first  on  her  stand 
ard  that  other  immortal  name,  of  the  sage  who,  with  equal 
facility,  drew  lightning  from  a  scowling  sky  and  from  the 
angry  breasts  of  his  fellow-men.  Other  States  which  had 
held  back,  alleging  constitutional  scruples,  were  now  reas 
sured  by  the  formal  approval  of  Congress,  and  appointed  their 
delegates.  Massachusetts  wheeled  into  line  ;  nor  was^New  York 
backward.  Of  the  thirteen  composing  the  American  Confed 
eracy  Rhode  Island  alone  refused  to  set  herself  in  motion. 

As  spring  advanced  the  eyes  of  the  country  turned  to  Phila 
delphia.  "  The  nearer  the  crisis  approaches,"  writes  Madison, 
oppressed  by  the  weight  of  his  personal  responsibility  for  the 
convention,  "  the  more  I  tremble  for  the  issue."*  Yet,  though 
we  still  wandered  through  the  pines,  distant  tree-tops  were 
visible,  whose  silvery  leaves  danced  in  the  sunshine. 


*  1  Madison's  Writings  (17S7).    And  see     Hildreth  ;  2  Rives's  Madi- 
eon  ;  2  J.  C.  Hamilton's  .Republic. 


36  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

SECTION  II. 

THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION. 
MAY  14— SEPTEMBER  17,  1787. 

THE  Philadelphia  delegates  gathered  tardily.  It  was  not 
until  May  25th  that  a  bare  quorum  of  seven  States,  assembling 
in  the  plain  brick  building  whence  America's  first  imperisha 
ble  document  issued,  organized  to  prepare  its  second.*  For 
president  of  this  convention  Washington  was  the  unanimous 
choice  ;  and  that  all  pretence  of  rivalship  for  the  first  honors 
might  be  excluded,  the  nomination  was  made  by  Franklin 
himself.  Major  Jackson  was  chosen  secretary. 

Two  of  the  standing  rules  adopted,  which  conformed  to  the 
practice  of  the  Continental  Congress,  deserve  notice.  One  gave 
to  each  State  a  single  vote ;  thus-  rendering  the  action  of  the 
convention  purely  confederate,  whatever  readjustment  of  the 
Union  it  might  compel.  It  was  hence  of  secondary  conse 
quence  that  the  total  number  of  delegates  was  fifty-five,  or 
that  Pennsylvania  had  four  times  as  many  members  as  Con 
necticut;  for  on  the  division  of  twelve  States  (Rhode  Island 
being  unrepresented)  turned  the  issue.  The  other  rule  de 
clared  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  secret;  a  disad 
vantage  so  far  as  its  deliberations  were  deprived  of  the  buoy 
ant  support  of  popular  opinion  ;  but  doubtless  a  gain  in  facili 
tating  the  material  sacrifices  found  necessary,  in  diminishing 
the  friction  of  debate,  and  moreover  for  keeping  public  curi 
osity  whetted  until  a  definite  plan  could  be  matured,  which 
was  all  the  more  likely  to  be  accepted  from  the  impossibility 
of  procuring  a  substitute. 

As  the  injunction  of  secrecy  was  never  removed,  and  further 
more  was  faithfully  observed,  we  shall  never  know  precisely 
what  was  said  and  done  in  this  important  convention.  The 
official  journal,  sealed  up  and  deposited  by  Washington  in 
the  public  archives,  was  found,  when  published  by  order  of 
Congress  many  years  after,  quite  brief  and  uusuggestive.  A 
few  hasty  notes,  taken  by  Judge  Yates  of  the  New  York  dele 
gation,  and  Luther  Martin's  open  letter  to  the  legislature  of 

*  See  Westcott's  Historic  Mansions ;  and  as  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
Constitutional  Convention  in  detail,  see  Elliot's  .Debates. 


1787.  REPORTED  PROCEEDINGS.  37 

Maryland, — both  of  these  men  being  unfriendly  to  the  plan,* 
and  absentees  for  much  of  the  time, — afford  by  themselves 
little  testimony  that  is  valuable.  But  Madison,  appreciating 
the  historical  consequence  of  this  assemblage,  undertook  to 
report,  though  not  verbatim,  its  entire  proceedings  ;  and  being 
accurate  and  methodical,  a  notably  impartial  writer,  and  used 
to  epitomizing,  he  was  tacitly  recognized  as  the  official  chroni 
cler  of  the  occasion  ;  his  fellow-speakers  commonly  revising 
his  brief  of  their  speeches.  His  ample  notes,  withheld  from 
publication  while  it  was  proper,  bear  abundant  marks  of  fair 
ness  as  well  as  authenticity.  Better  or  worse,  they  afford  the 
only  extended  testimony  available  at  all ;  and,  strange  to  add, 
Madison  survived  all  his  colleagues,  thus  becoming  the  oracle 
of  a  convention  he  had  done  so  much  to  gather  and  direct. 

Of  this  august  assembly  a  large  proportion  were  safe  men 
in  council,  over  whom  presided  the  chief  American  of  the  age. 
Here  were  Elbridge  Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  Roger  Sherman, 
of  Connecticut,  George  Read,  of  Delaware,  and  Chancellor 
Wythe,  of  Virginia,— all  of  whom  had  put  their  names  to  the 
charter  of  independence.  John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina, 
boasted  a  record  of  Continental  service  which  went  back  to  the 
Stamp  Act  Congress.  What  crisis  in  American  affairs  for 
the  past  thirty  years  had  lacked  the  safe  pilotage  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  the  sage  of  common-sense?  Pennsylvania's  full 
delegation,  indeed,  was  a  bright  cluster,  comprising  the  banker 
statesman,  Robert  Morris,  George  Clymer,  and  James  Wilson, 
all  76  men — the  last  a  man  of  Scotch  honor  and  sagacity, 
whose  present  prominence  in  debate  gave  hope  of  a  brilliant 
political  career,  which  was  dashed  by  his  retirement  to  the 
bench.  Even  the  once  potent  Dickinson,  who  shrank  from 
taking  the  plunge  for  independence,  headed  the  Delaware 
delegation  as  a  champion  of  the  rights  of  the  smaller  States. 
States  had  taken  pains  to  send  to  Philadelphia  the  older  pa 
triots,  whose  fame  was  a  watchword.  Hamilton,  Madison,  Rufus 
King,  of  Massachusetts,  Gouverneur  Morris,  of  New  York, 
and  Charles  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  might  be  styled 
young  aspirants  for  fame,  whose  later  career  did  not  disappoint ; 
yet  each  one  of  these  had  already  a  Continental  reputation. 

*  But  Yates  appears  to  have  afterwards  supported  the  Constitution. 


38  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I, 

John  Langdon,  of  New  Hampshire,  arid  Oliver  Ellsworth,  of 
Connecticut,  were  good  examples  of  the  moderation  and  so 
briety  which  on  the  whole  prevailed. 

Men  of  tact  and  skill  in  affairs,  rounded  legislators  here  pre 
dominated.  Eighteen  members  of  the  convention  belonged  to 
the  Continental  Congress, — a  promising  circumstance  as  con 
cerned  the  Federal  approval  of  whatever  plan  the  convention 
might  agree  to  submit  to  the  country.  But  it  was  the  wealth, 
education,  and  conservatism  of  the  States  which  on  the  whole 
seemed  best  represented.  The  convention  was,  in  fact,  the  pro 
test  of  liberty  protected  by  law  against  liberty  independent  of 
it.  And  the  convention  work  displayed  alike  the  virtues  and 
failings  of  such  counsellors. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  main  business  of  this  convention  was 
opened  by  the  submission  of  a  series  of  propositions,  fifteen  in 
number,  embodying  a  new  scheme  of  central  government,  which 
Governor  Edmund  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  offered  on  behalf  of 
his  delegation  ;  that  a  running  discussion  of  these  propositions 
for  two  weeks  in  committee  of  the  whole,  eliciting  the  first 
sense  of  the  delegates,  terminated  with  a  report  of  the  plan 
to  the  convention  in  a  modified  form  ;  that  in  the  course  of 
the  main  debate  which  ensued  on  this  modified  plan,  other 
delegates  offered  counter-projects,  and,  as  occasion  arose,  grand 
committees  were  appointed  for  reconciling  sectional  differences 
of  opinion,  until  at  length  a  distinct  plan  of  constitutional 
union  was  arranged ;  that  this  plan,  referred  to  a  committee 
of  detail,  and  amended  on  their  report  in  some  important  par 
ticulars,  became  shaped  into  the  first  draft  of  our  Federal  Con 
stitution,  which  draft,  receiving  its  polish  and  last  arrange 
ment  at  the  hands  of  a  final  committee,  was  accepted  by  the 
convention  and  signed  by  the  delegates  in  due  form. 

Manifestly,  then  (and  the  reported  debates  confirm  this 
view),  our  precious  charter  must  have  been  the  product,  not  of 
one  mind,  but  of  many;  the  fruit  of  a  laborious  and  minute 
discussion,  and  much  compromise.  The  authorship  of  some 
of  its  most  vital  phrases  will  never  be  clearly  ascertained. 
But  in  the  "  Randolph  plan,"  which  the  Virginia  delegation — • 
the  first,  with  that  of  Pennsylvania,  to  assemble  in  force — pre 
pared  together,  so  as  to  take  the  expected  initiative,  we  trace 


1787.  PLAXS   OF   GOVERNMENT.  39 

at  least  erne  busy  hand.*  The  fundamental  change  of  govern 
ment  this  plan  proposed  was  to  supersede  the  confederacy  by 
a  national,  or  rather  federo-national  union,  derived  from  the 
people,  and  operating  with  adequate  authority  and  by  means 
of  distinct  executive,  legislative,  and  judiciary  departments, 
upon  the  people  at  large,  instead  of  upon  the  several  States  as 
hitherto;  which  change  finally  prevailed,  by  the  favor  of  six 
States,— Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  the  two  Caro- 
linas,  and  Georgia. 

Directly  opposed  to  this  was  the  second  or  "  New  Jersey 
plan ;"  a  counter-scheme  of  government  offered  at  the  second 
stage  of  discussion  on  behalf  of  those  delegations  who  wished 
the  Union  to  retain  still  its  confederate  character.  This  plan 
conceded  a  separation  of  departments  ;  and  yet,  clothing  Con 
gress  with  the  desired  functions  of  raising  the  general  revenue 
and  regulating  commerce,  it  left  the  States  sovereign  as  before 
in  most  practical  concerns ;  keeping  the  rule  of  representa 
tion  unchanged,  permitting  the  local  authorities  to  enforce 
revenue  and  commercial  measures  in  the  first  instance,  with 
holding  the  adequate  means  of  compelling  submission  to  the 
Union,  and  reserving  still  to  the  States  all  powers  not  expressly 
delegated.  This  plan,  contrived  by  the  delegations  of  smaller 
States,  in  the  interest  they  represented  (for  these  States  wished 
to  keep  their  equal  vote  in  the  general  council),  receives  its 
name  from  the  circumstance  that  a  New  Jersey  delegate, 
William  Paterson,  introduced  it  to  the  convention.  To  this 
the  delegations  of  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware, 
together  with  Luther  Martin,  of  Maryland,  and  Hamilton's 
obstructive  colleagues  from  New  York,  were  committed. 

Two  more  plans,  presented  by  individuals  on  their  sole  re 
sponsibility,  deserve  mention.  One  prepared  by  Charles  Pinck- 
ney,  which  was  put  forward  at  the  same  time  with  that  of  the 
Virginia  delegation,  no  doubt  had  some  influence,  but  to  what 
extent  is  unknown  ;  nor  has  a  perfect  copy  been  preserved.f 

*  Sec  I  Madison's  Writings,  March  and  April,  1787. 

f  That  the  sketch  officially  published  years  later  as  the  "  Pinckney 

plan"  must  have  been  inaccurate,  see  3  llildreth,  485,  and  a  curious 

narrative  in  2  Rives's  Madison,  310,  3-33,  note.     Charles  Pinckney  is  to 

.  be  distinguished  from  his  colleague  in  the  convention,  Charles  C.  Pinck- 


40  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

The  other  was  Hamilton's,  deeply  stamped  with  the  idiosyn 
crasies  of  its  inventor,  but  apparently  not  seriously  proposed 
for  adoption,  but  rather  offered  as  an  ideal  of  his  own  by  way 
of  illustrating  a  striking  speech,  which  he  designed  should 
sound  the  assembly  as  to  first  principles.  Among  its  promi 
nent  features  were  a  national  legislature,  composed  of  a  Senate, 
representing  property,  to  be  chosen  for  life  or  good  behavior, 
and  a  popular  house ;  a  life-executive  of  almost  autocratic 
powers  to  be  chosen  by  electors;  and  centralization  of  au 
thority  to  a  degree  that  must  have  reduced  States  to  mere 
provinces  or  municipalities,  by  giving  to  the  Union  the  appoint 
ment  of  their  governors  and  the  right  to  negative  their  legis 
lative  enactments.  In  the  speech  accompanying  these  startling 
•propositions,  which  he  had  carefully  prepared  in  the  closet 
and  delivered  on  fit  opportunity  after  the  New  Jersey  plan 
had  been  presented,  Hamilton  frankly  avowed  his  conviction 
that  mankind  were  vicious,  except  a  few  choice  spirits,  and 
should  be  ruled  upon  that  theory;  that  the  ideal  monarch  was 
one  hereditary,  clothed  with  so  much  power  that  he  would  not 
be  interested  in  seeking  more ;  and  that  the  influence  of  men's 
•ambitions  ought  to  be  employed  so  as  to  make  a  government 
secure.* 

In  this  instance  Hamilton  evinced  that  eccentricity  of 
thought,  that  confident  reliance  upon  his  unaided  judgment, 
and  that  equally  confident  way  of  impressing  his  convictions 
upon  others  as  truths  eternal;  which  aided  so  greatly  to  be 
numb  his  capacity  for  successful  leadership  in  a  republic  like 
ours.  To  the  cooler  heads  of  the  assembly  it  was  plain  that  a 

ney,  afterwards  a  puominent  candidate  for  high  honors  at  the  hands  of 
the  Federal  party,  but  not  successful  according  to  his  deserts. 

*  Hamilton's  son  and  panegyrist  finds  fault  with  Madison's  report  of 
the  speech  and  plan  above  referred  to  ;  and  the  elder  Hamilton  in  1803 
denied  the  public  rumor,  then  current,  that  he  had  ever  contemplated 
the  abolition  of  States.  3  John  C.  Hamilton's  Republic.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  Madison  emphatically  affirms  that  his  report  was  fair  and 
ingenuous,  and  that  Hamilton  revised  it  at  the  time,  and  expressed 
himself  satisfied.  4  Madison's  Writings,  177,  380.  That  both  speech 
and  plan  must  have  been  substantially  as  stated  in  the  text,  is  arnpl  y 
confirmed  by  Hamilton's  own  contemporary  letters  and  published  mem 
oranda.  See  2  Hamilton's  Works,  395-421. 


1787.  HAMILTON'S  PLAN.  41 

man  of  brilliant  parts,  if  not  genius,  sent  thither  to  represent 
the  most  reluctant  State  in  the  whole  confederacy,  with  two 
colleagues  who  seemed  expressly  selected  for  thwarting  the 
convention  aims,  one  who  had  worked  for  years  to  bring  about 
this  gathering,  had  flung  away  his  opportunity.  Though  some 
in  and  out  of  the  convention  could  have  sympathized  with  his 
views  in  some  respects,  all  knew  them  to  be  impracticable ;  so 
that,  as  a  delegate  presently  remarked,  Hamilton  had  been 
praised  by  many  but  supported  by  none.  Conscious  of  his 
failure,  the  mortified  speculatist  soon  left  Philadelphia;  but, 
on  the  withdrawal  of  his  colleagues  at  a  later  and  more  criti 
cal  period,  was  induced  to  return,  and  casting  now  the  soli 
tary  vote  of  New  York  with  discretion,  he  put  himself  quickly 
in  sympathy  with  the  reform  element  of  the  convention,  and 
gained  deserved  applause. 

The  three  great  compromises  of  our  Constitution  had  refer 
ence  to  the  legislative  department,  over  which  arose  the  most 
stubborn  controversy.  They  were.'  (1.)  That  which  gave 
equality  of  States  to  the  Senate.  (2.)  That  which  reckoned 
three-fifths  of  the  slaves  in  apportioning  representatives  for  the 
House.  (3.)  That  which  forbade  the  Federal  prohibition  of 
the  slave-trade  until  1808,  in  consideration  of  new  commercial 
facilities.  The  first,  which  was  secured  through  the  determi 
nation  of  the  smaller  States, not  to  yield  entirely  that  confed 
erate  rule  of  representation  which  the  larger  States  were  bent 
on  invading,  has  admirably  preserved  the  composite  character 
of  our  system.  The  second,  though  unfortunate  as  a  conces 
sion  to  slavery,  seems  to  have  been  not  an  unjustifiable  sacri 
fice  for  the  sake  of  union  to  the  large  slaveholding  States 
that  found  popular  representation  reduced  to  a  single  house; 
its  main  purpose  being  not  to  encourage  that  institution,  but 
rather  to  preserve  a  temporary  prestige,  which  abolition  would 
much  enhance.  But  the  third,  which  was  thrust  upon  the 
convention  by  sleight  of  hand,  and  carried  through  by  the 
united  effort  of  commercial  New  England  and  the  two  south 
ernmost  States,  while  the  Piuckneys  cracked  their  whips,  made 
the  Union  responsible  for  riveting  upon  our  commerce  for 
twenty  years  an  infamous  traffic  which  a  majority  of  the  slave- 
VOL.  i.— 4 


42  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

holding  States  and  the  better  part  of  our  population  con 
demned.* 

The  enumerated  powers  of  Congress  were  readily  drawn  out 
after  the  main  principles  of  the  new  government  had  been 
determined  ;  and  the  language  of  the  existing  Articles  guided 
as  to  some  of  the  delicate  provisions  which  sought  to  obviate 
collision  with  the  States.  The  House,  which  was  to  respond 
the  more  readily  to  public  impulse,  had  the  right  of  originat 
ing  all  revenue  bills,  while  to  the  Senate  were  committed  high 
functions  of  an  extra-legislative  character.  In  the  choice  of 
members,  as  in  various  matters  of  constitutional  detail,  the  dis 
position  was  to  leave  States  to  their  own  discretion. 

As  regarded  the  executive,  ample  room  for  disagreement 
was  found  ;  but  no  such  violent  controversy  occurred  as  in  the 
case  of  the  legislature.  «  The  weight  of  opinion  favored  not  a 
plural,  but  a  single  chief  magistrate,  who  should  hold  office  for  a 
moderate  term  of  years.  But  there  was  grave  discussion  as  to 
the  method  of  choosing  him,  the  precise  tenure  of  office,  re- 
eligibility,  and  to  some  extent  the  executive  functions ;  and  it 
is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  the  controlling  provisions  of  our 
Constitution  in  these  respects  were  adopted  in  full  detail,  as  if 
by  an  exhausted  assembly,  upon  a  mere  committee  report 
made  in  the  latter  part  of  the  session. 

At  this  early  day  there  was  in  America  no  practical  recog 
nition  of  universal  suffrage  as  a  political  right,  apart  from 
property  qualification,  and  so  conservative  were  the  delegates 
here  present  as  hardly  to  permit  of  the  popular  choice  of  repre 
sentatives  to  the  lower  house.  Some  system  of  checks  and  bal 
ances,  the  filtration  of  public  will  through  intermediate  chan 
nels,  was  deemed  indispensable  to  order.  As  against  the  pop 
ular  choice  of  a  President,  for  which  only  the  Pennsylvania 
delegates  contended,  it  was  alleged  that  the  people  are  the 

*  See  Elliot's  Debates.  The  committee  of  detail  made  important 
changes  in  the  draft  submitted  to  them,  on  their  own  responsibility  and 
for  the  especial  advantage  of  South  Carolina:  that  there  should  be  no 
duties  laid  on  exports ;  no  restraints  upon  the  slave-trade ;  and  no  navi 
gation  act,  except  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  both  houses.  This  put  a  load 
upon  the  convention  to  shake  off  as  it  might.  The  New  England  dele 
gations  to  remove  the  third  incumbrance  yielded  partially  on  the  second. 


1787.  THE   CHIEF   EXECUTIVE.  43 

dupes  of  .pretended  patriots;  that  it  would  be  as  unnatural  to 
refer  the  choice  to  them  as  to  refer  the  trial  of  colors  to  a  blind 
man ;  that  the  country  at  large  can  never  be  sufficiently  in 
formed  of  characters  with  a  continental  experience,  nor  citi 
zens  of  a  State  be  induced  to  select  another  than  their  local 
Hampdens.  Dr.  Franklin  felt  compelled  to  rebuke  his  breth 
ren  at  one  time,  so  unrepublican  was  the  tone  of  their  discus 
sion,  by  reminding  them  that  our  fundamental  principle 
regarded  rulers  as  the  servants  and  the  people  as  their  supe 
riors. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  up  to  a  very  late  stage  of 
proceedings  the  convention  showed  a  disposition  to  give  the 
choice  of  the  chief  executive  to  Congress,  this  being  a  feature 
both  of  the  Randolph  and  New  Jersey  plans.  It  was  only 
when  it  became  certain  that  the  term  of  office,  which  many 
wished  to  make  seven  years,  with  no  right  of  re-election,  would 
be  placed  at  four  years,  with  re-eligibility,  and  when,  more 
over,  the  legislature  assumed  shape  as  a  congress  of  two 
houses  with  largely  increased  authority,  its  members  suscep 
tible  to  intrigue,  cabal,  and  corruption,  and  the  pressure  of  for 
eign  influence  besides,  that  the  convention  turned  with  alarm 
to  other  modes  of  election.  Hence  the  expedient  of  an  elec 
toral  college,  which  Wilson  and  Hamilton  foreshadowed,  and 
•which  the  convention,  vexed  by  fruitless  discussions,  finally 
accepted  without  debate ;  concluding  it  preferable,  doubtless, 
to  other  ingenious  plans  suggested,  such  as  putting  the  choice 
out  to  the  State  governors,  or  drawing  names  blindfolded 
from  a  bag. 

In  no  respect  has  our  Constitution  operated  so  differently 
from  what  its  actual  framers  intended  than  in  this  machinery 
of  an  electoral  college.-  A  body  convoked,  as  they  expected 
it  to  be,  for  solemn  incubation,  has  degenerated  into  a  mere 
mechanism  for  cackling  official  results  ;  and  that  with  this  con 
stant  menace  to  American  liberty, — that  in  a  close  contest  a 
few  electors,  or  even  a  single  one,  cajoled,  bribed,  or  menaced 
into  violating  a  tacit  pledge  to  the  people,  might  becloud 
the  Presidential  title,  defeat  the  popular  will,  and  perhapa 
plunge  the  nation  into  a  bloody  strife  over  the  succession. 


44  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I> 

And  yet  this  was  the  feature  of  our  Constitution  which  in  ad 
vance  gave  the  most  general  acceptance.* 

.We  may  add  that,  following  the  prevailing  practice  of  the 
States,  the  convention  determined  to  throw  the  election  of 
President  into  the  legislature,  in  default  of  a  majority  of 
votes  for  any  one  candidate  as  the  chief  magistrate ;  but  for 
this  contingency  the  House  was  deliberately  selected  in  pref 
erence  to  the  Senate,  of  whose  privileges  the  convention  had 
grown  suspicious.  A  novel  and  acceptable  feature  of  the 
committee's  plan  was  the  provision  for  a  Vice-President.  The 
powers  vested  in  the  executive,  including  the  qualified  veto, 
tended  to  diminish  the  influence  of  the  legislature. 

The  judiciary  and  a  judicial  system  to  operate  directly  upon 
individuals  occasioned  no  serious  difference  of  opinion.  The 
judicial  tenure  of  good  behavior,  sacredly  cherished  under  the 
common  law,  was  unanimously  assented  to.  It  was  at  one 
time  proposed  that  the  trial  of  impeachments  should  be  given 
to  the  judiciary,  but  this  power  was  afterwards  transferred  to 
the  Senate. 

State  encroachment  upon  the  Federal  orbit  was  to  be  for- 
fended.  Experience  taught  that  unless  the  Federal  govern 
ment  could  negative  such  acts  of  local  legislatures  as  contra 
vened  its  just  authority,  States  might  come  to  set  it  at  defiance. 
Madison's  idea  had  been  to  establish  a  council  of  revision ; 
Hamilton's  to  confer  a  veto  power  upon  the  Federal  executive. 
Jefferson  disapproved  Madison's  scheme  as  one  which  proposed 
to  mend  a  small  hole  by  covering  the  whole  garment,  and  sug 
gested  that  the  only  true  remedy,  so  far  as  any  existed,  lay  in 
the  Federal  judiciary  ;f  a  conclusion  to  which  the  convention 
likewise  came.  And,  besides  requiring  that  State  officers 
should  take  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  that  instrument  made  express  declaration  of  the  bind 
ing  force  of  the  Constitution  and  pursuant  laws  and  treaties 
as  the  supreme  law  of  the  laud,  notwithstanding  any  State 
constitution  or  law  to  the  contrary. 

Some  miscellaneous  provisions  deserve  a  passing  notice. 
There  were  sundry  provisions  which  better  guaranteed  the 

*  See  Federalist,  No.  G8. 

f  2  Jefferson's  Works,  June  20th,  1787. 


1787.  MISCELLANEOUS   PROVISIONS.  45 

rights  of  citizens ;  as,  for  instance,  in  taking  the  worst  penal 
ties  from  treason — a  crime  whose  heiuousness  lessens  as  the 
fundamental  idea  of  common  consent  crowds  out  that  of  blind 
allegiance;  and  in  extending,  though  somewhat  grudgingly, 
the  facilities  of  habeas  corpus  and  the  right  of  trial  by  jury. 
The  several  States  (and  yet  not  in  express  terms,  the  United 
States)  were  forbidden  to  emit  bills  of  credit,  make  tender  of 
anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin,  or  impair  the  obligation  of 
contracts;  but  neither  Federal  nor  local  authority  should  pass 
bills  of  attainder  or  ex  post  facto  laws,  nor  grant  titles  of  nobility. 
Mutual  faith  and  credit  were  enjoined  as  to  the  public  acts 
and  proceedings  of  States ;  the  peaceful  citizen  of  one  State 
was  declared  entitled  to  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  all ; 
while  each  State  was  to  deny  an  asylum  to  any  fugitive  from 
justice,  but  deliver  him  upon  demand  of  the  State  from  which 
he  had  fled.* 

The  prospective  growth  of  the  Union  encouraged  not  only 
the  policy  of  leaving  territorial  regulation  to  the  liberal  dis 
cretion  of  Congress,  but  likewise  that  of  admitting  new  States 
into  the  Union -t  But  to  check  the  present  disintegrating  ten 
dencies,  it  was  forbidden  to  form  new  States  by  the  dismem 
berment  of  old  ones,  except  upon  mutual  assent  of  the  legisla 
tures  concerned,  besides  the  sanction  of  Congress. 

Two  clauses,  which  attracted  comparatively  little  notice  at 
this  time,  have  served  since  to  prop  pernicious  theories ;  one, 
which  guaranteed  to  each  State  a  republican  form  of  govern 
ment,  and  protection  against  domestic  violence ;  the  other 
(whose  language  seems  to  have  been  borrowed  from  a  clause 
contained  in  the  ancient  compact  of  the  New  England  con 
federacy),  relating,  in  substance,  to  the  surrender  of  fugitive 
slaves.  The  simple  design  of  the  former  clause  was  not  for 
encouraging  the  Union  to  meddle  with  local  institutions  at 
discretion,  but  instead  to  keep  those  institutions  secure  against 


*  These  last  provisions,  with  some  changes,  were  transferred  from 
the  Articles  of  Confederation. 

f  Under  the  Articles,  the  assent  of  nine  States  was  a  prerequisite  to 
such  admission.  But  under  the  Constitution  admission  was  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  legislation. 


46  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I 

factionists  of  the  Shays  order.     The  latter  clause  is  now  hap 
pily  obsolete. 

The  example  of  the  present  confederacy  warned  Americans 
never  to  build  another  house  which  could  only  be  remodelled 
by  pulling  the  whole  structure  to  pieces.  The  power  of  amend 
ment,  though  still,  under  restraint,  was  left  by  the  convention, 
except  in  certain  special  respects,  such  that  the  spirit  of  reform 
might  hope  to  mould  and  alter;  and  had  this  been  otherwise 
neither  would  the  Constitution  have  been  adopted  at  all,  nor, 
granting  its  adoption,  could  it  have  lasted  twenty  years.  As  the 
wisdom  of  these  master-builders  shone  clearly  out  at  this  point, 
so  was  their  masterly  audacity  vindicated  in  so  putting  forth  the 
new  plan  of  union  that  any  nine  out  of  the  thirteen  States  might, 
by  adopting  it  in  popular  convention,  free  themselves  forever 
from  the  present  death  cramp;  for  the  premeditated  course, 
and  the  only  course,  indeed,  which  promised  safety,  was  by  a 
sudden  move  of  bodies  politic,  unexampled  in  history,  to  dis 
unite  from  one  Federal  government  and  at  once  reunite  under 
another. 

A  composite  scheme  of  government  like  this,  the  product  of 
mutual  concession  and  compromise,  was  not  likely  to  satisfy 
even  those  who  had  framed  it.  Not  a  delegation  was  present 
whose  State  was  not  compelled  to  surrender  one  valued  right 
in  order  to  gain  another.  To  induce  members  to  sign  the  final 
draft,  that  it  might  go  forth  with  a  weighty  sanction,  was  not 
easy.  Elbridge  Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  positively  refused  to 
pen  his  name.  Luther  Martin,  of  Maryland,  had  already  left 
disgusted.  Yates  and  Lansing  retiring  early,  New  York  would 
have  been  without  a  representative  but  for  Hamilton's  return. 
And  what  caused  the  greatest  concern,  Virginia's  delegation 
had  cloven  apart ;  Mason  and  Randolph,  for  various  reasons, 
disapproving  the  plan  as  finally  adopted. 

On  the  morning  of  adjournment  a  final  effort  was 
made  to  appease  the  refractory  members.  Franklin, 
rising  in  his  place  after  the  engrossed  copy  of  the  new  Consti 
tution  had  been  read  through,  offered  a  form  of  attestation  by 
States,  to  which  members  might  append  their  names  without 
yielding  their  personal  scruples;  and  he  urged,  as  the  ground 
of  harmony,  that  while  a  new  general  government  was  abso- 


1787.  SIGNING   THE   CONSTITUTION.  47 

lutely  needful,  no  better  plan  than  the  present  was  likely  to 
emanate  from  any  later  convention.  His  well-chosen  remarks 
were  applauded  by  Gouverneur  Morris  and  others,  who  followed 
in  the  same  strain.  "  No  man's  ideas,"  says  Hamilton  frankly, 
"  are  more  remote  from  the  plan  than  my  own  are  known  to 
be  ;  but  is  it  possible  to  deliberate  between  anarchy  and  con 
vulsion  on  one  side  and  the  chance  of  good  to  be  expected  from 
this  plan  on  the  other?"  Washington,  who  had  refrained 
from  active  discussion,  left  his  chair  to  propose  a  slight  change 
in  the  representative  ratio  clause,  which  was  promptly  carried, 
not  less  from  the  general  desire  to  propitiate  the  delegation  of 
his  State  than  a  conviction  that  the  greatest  among  them  stood 
securely.  But  these  efforts  were  lost  upon  the  men  towards 
whom  they  were  chiefly  directed.  To  the  attestation  clause, 
adopted  after  the  form  Franklin  had  proposed,  the  name  of 
Washington,  as  president  of  the  convention,  was  first  sub 
scribed;  then  followed  the  signatures  of  such  other  delegates, 
ranged  by  States,  as  yielded  their  assent. 

One  salient  anecdote  alone  enlivens  the  grave  traditions  of 
this  almost  continuous  secret  session  of  four  months,  which  had 
more  than  once  nearly  broken  up  in  disorder.  Whilst  the 
last  members  were  signing  the  parchment  the  silver-haired 
Franklin,  looking  towards  the  president's  chair,  upon  the  back 
of  which  wras  painted  a  half-sun,  observed  to  those  standing 
near  him,  that  painters  found  it  difficult  to  distinguish  in  their 
art  between  a  rising  and  setting  sun.  "  I  have,"  he  adds,  "often 
and  often,  in  the  course  of  this  session,  and  in  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  my  hopes  and  fears  as  to  the  issue,  looked  at  that 
behind  the  president  without  being  able  to  tell  whether  it  was 
rising  or  setting.  But  now  I  have  the  happiness  to  knojv  that 
it  is  a  rising  and  not  a  setting  sun." 


"| 


SECTION  III. 
A  MORE  PERFECT 
SEPTEMBER  18,  1787— 

WE  are  now  led  to  inquire  briefly  into  the  origin  of  political 
parties  in  the  United  States. 

The  two  great  subjects  which  most  enlist,  and  at  the  same 


48  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

time  distract,  the  passions  and  opinions  of  mankind,  are  re 
ligion  and  politics;  and  the  more  universal  in  church  or  state 
the  concession  of  a  right  to  think  and  act  independently,  the 
.stronger  becomes  the  tendency  of  the  mass  to  separate  into 
parties.  Progress  is  the  law  of  our  being ;  but  the  true  direc 
tion  of  human  progress  is  stated  differently,  and,  whether  to 
accomplish  or  check  innovation,  men  combine  under  choice 
leaders  and  concert  plans  for  influencing  their  fellow-men. 
In  some  wiser  age,  when  truth  triumphs,  and  passion  puts  out 
her  torch,  a  general  assimilation,  or  at  least  toleration  of  views 
is  possible,  but  such  an  age  history  has  never  found.  Nor  is 
it  certain  that  individualism  and  indifference  are  the  elements 
of  a  perfect  state  of  society,  more  than  blind  submission  to 
an  authority  which  refuses  to  be  questioned. 

Among  ancient  nations,  the  Athenian  and  Roman  republics 
more  especially,  flourished  political  parties,  whose  best  achieve 
ment  was  to  advance  the  condition  of  the  common  people 
and  give  them  a  share  in  honors  at  first  absorbed  by  a  privi 
leged  class.  Modern  parties  have  a  similar  tendency.  But 
while  human  nature  is  always  the  same,  the  conditions  of  the 
old  and  new  civilization  greatly  differ. 

American  society  is  the  product  of  forces  essentially  modern. 
For  Europe's  reawakening  does  not  antedate  the  fifteenth 
century,  when  the  invention  of  printing  supplied  the  means  of 
diffusing  knowledge,  while  the  later  discovery  of  America 
widened  the  area  of  commerce,  encouraged  physical  explora 
tions,  and  furnished,  besides,  convincing  proof  that  superstition 
had  ruled  the  Christian  Church  in  the  guise  of  a  superior 
revelation.  Reformation  in  church  and  state  became  the  ani 
mating  impulse  of  the  century  which  succeeded;  the  sword 
was  drawn;  Protestantism  and  popular  right  struggled  hand 
to  hand  with  Catholicism  and  kingly  succession.  The  seven 
teenth  century  developed  a  growing,  and  yet  a  grudging  tolera 
tion.  Among  Anglo-Saxons,  at  least,  reformation  had  been 
domesticated  ;  but  empirical  methods  in  science  yielded  slowly 
under  Bacon's  influence  to  reason  and  induction,  and  in  the 
church  was  intensity  of  conviction  without  charity. 

Under  such  influences  America  was  first  colonized ;  coloni 
zation  of  itself  establishing  a  filial  relation,  which  sets  the 


1787.  ORIGIN   OF   POLITICAL   PARTIES.  49 

child  to  imitating  the  parent.  But  English  colonization  on 
these  Atlantic  shores  originated  so -greatly  in  civil  and  re 
ligious  persecution,  or  rather  intolerance  at  home,  that  the 
first  impulse  of  our  immigrants  must  have  been  strong  to  ap 
ply  the  peculiar  principles  they  cherished  where  none  were 
likely  to  molest.  And  assuredly  party  spirit  was  in  more 
wholesome  motion,  and  did  more  for  civil  liberty  among  these 
North  Atlantic  colonies  during  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts  and 
the  brief  existence  of  the  English  commonwealth  than  under 
Whig  sovereigns  for  the  whole  three-quarters  of  a  century 
which  followed  ;  for  this  was  the  era  of  intestine  strife  at  home, 
and  the  colonists  were  left  to  themselves.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
dominated  ;  and  in  the  new  soil  the  political  ideas  of  Buchanan, 
Sidney,  Milton,  and  that  favorite  of  American  settlers,  Locke, 
germinated  quickly.  Colonies,  quite  disconnected,  embraced 
the  same  creed  of  popular  government. 

The  first  political  fact  of  American  history  to  confront  us 
is  that  in  each  colony  during  this  early  period  a  controversy, 
waged  between  proprietaries  and  the  body  of  settlers,  ended 
in  the  transfer  of  fundamental   authority  from    the   former 
class  to  legislatures  representing  the  latter.     Those  privileged 
to  rule  under  the  royal  seal  and  mandate  yielded,  however 
reluctantly,  to  the  demands  of  a  popular  rights  party.     Such 
a  political  division  operated  in  the  Bacon  rebellion,     1G7__76 
whose  influence  extended  from  Virginia  to  Mary 
land.*  Some  forty  years  earlier,  the  arrival  at  Boston  of  Vane, 
a  privy  councillor's  son,  and  the  expectation  that  other  British 
peers  would  follow,  flattered  an  influential  faction     ^__^ 
in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  colony  into  plans  for  in 
troducing  an  aristocracy  and  hereditary  rulers  ;  but  the  people 
of  the  colony,  at  first  dazzled,  soon  came  back  to  Wiuthrop 
and  plain  rule.| 

Political  parties  must,  therefore,  have  contended  on  Amer 
ican  soil  in  the  earliest  era  of  colonization  ;  radically  dis 
tinguished,  though  not  wholly  unselfish,  by  the  distrust  of  the 
one  and  the  confidence  of  the  other  in  man's  capacity  forself- 

*  See  2  Bancroft's  United  States, 
f  1  Bancroft's  United  States. 
VOL.  i.— 5 


50  HISTOEY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

government.  One  party  set  much  by  privilege,  royalty,  and 
the  power  to  compel ;  the  other  was  jealous  of  external  au 
thority,  and  its  champions  were  in  heart  more  nearly  rebels 
against  the  king  than  they  cared  to  own. 

Religion  tinctured  these  early  onsets,  which  fortunately  drew 
little  blood.  But  the  friends  of  popular  rights  and  religious 
freedom  were  by  no  means  coincident ;  and  it  is  observable 
that  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith  may  be  held  with 
little  wavering,  while  political  issues  change  rapidly  and  call 
for  new  party  combinations.  Whether  it  were  from  policy  or 
conscience,  the  friends  of  kingly  prerogative  combined  often 
with  those  who  preached  liberty  of  conscience.  To  be  com 
monly  obnoxious  to  those  in  power  is  a  firm  bond  of  union, 
and  most  of  that  era  appeared  to  define  liberty  as  the  exclusive 
right  of  propagating  their  own  opinions.  Lord  Baltimore  set- 
the  earliest  example  of  inviting  Protestants  to  settle  in  a  Ro 
man  Catholic  colony ;  but  as  a  result  of  a  popular  triumph 
afterwards  in  Maryland,  Catholics  themselves  were  disfran 
chised.  The  overthrow  of  the  Massachusetts  aristocracy  and 
Governor  Vane,  too,  was  accompanied  by  a  bitter  persecu 
tion  of  the.  liberals  in  religion  with  whom  they  had  affili 
ated  ;  and  the  zealous  but  indiscreet  youth  whose  later  career 
gained  him  a  place  among  freedom's  martyrs,  angrily  shook 
off  the  Pilgrim  dust  and  sailed  homeward,  leaving  his  parting 
rebuke  of  magistrates  whose  rule  is  intolerance.* 

After  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  Amer 
ica  was  ruled  with  a  stronger  hand ;  the  home  policy 
being  now  to  recall  settlers  to  their  allegiance,  repress  ten 
dencies  to  popular  rule  in  disregard  of  the  royal  charters,  and 
keep  the  Colonies  disunited.  A  prime  object  was  to  make 
America  a  market  for  British  wares  and  merchandise.  Com 
mercial  agents  and  royal  officeholders  in  the  New  World  gave 
a  more  subdued  and  courtly  tone  to  society.  Less  responsible 
for  the  course  of  their  own  affairs,  the  colonists  now  grew  more 
observant  of  events  abroad,  of  parliamentary  statutes  and  orders 
in  council.  To  the  new  generation  American  politics  had  be- 

*  See  1  Bancroft's  United  States;    Winthrop's  Journal  (1635-37); 
Upham's  Life  of  Vane ;  1  Hildreth's  United  States. 


1787.  POLITICAL   PARTIES    IN   AMERICA.  51 

come  the  mere  reflex  of  what  was  passing  in  the  world  of 
London.  Hence  came  the  British  party  names,  "  Whig  "  and 
"  Tory,"  into  vogue  among  Americans,  with,  perhaps,  this 
prime  distinction,  that  the  colonial  Tory  was  a  British  subject 
to  the  core,  while  the  colonial  Whig  believed,  with  Locke,  in 
deriving  government  from  the  common  consent  of  the  gov 
erned  ;  that  theory  so  cherished  by  our  earlier  colonists,  and 
asserted,  somewhat  illogically,  by  Parliament  itself  for  justi 
fying  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Stuarts.  Loyalty  animated 
the  one  set,  while  the  other  ripened  for  independence.* 

That  parties  in  America  thus  divided  long  before  the  out 
break  of  the  Revolution  is  attested  by  witnesses  as  thoroughly 
competent  and  yet  diverse  in  their  political  views  as  John 
Adams,  Jay,  and  Jefferson.f  Franklin,  too,  who,  best  of  our 
countrymen,  links  the  new  era  with  the  old,  was  early  im 
pressed  by  the  profound  influences  of  party  ties.  J 

But  provincial  politics  took  a  special  direction.  The  New 
England  confederacy,  that  embryo  of  our  Continental  Union, 
the  king  had  carefully  suppressed  ;  and  yet  so  strongly  did 
the  Colonies  incline  to  confederate,  from  common  interests, 
common  sympathies,  and  the  need  of  a  common  defence,  that 


*  The  origin  of  the  two  great  English  parties  since  known  as  Whig 
and  Tory,  dates  back  in  Great  Britain  to  the  contention  of  Charles  1  with 
Parliament,  or  about  1641.  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers  they  were  gener 
ally  called  while  the  strife  was  by  force  of  arms.  See  1  Macaulay's 
England,  c.  1. 

f  John  Adams  wrote,  November  25th,  1812:  "You  say,  'our  divi 
sions  began  with  federalism  and  anti-federalism.'  Alas!  they  began  with 
human  nature;  they  have  existed  in  America  from  its  first  plantation. 
In  every  Colony  divisions  always  prevailed.  In  New  York,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  and  all  the  rest,  a  court  and  country  party 
have  always  contended.  Whig  and  Tory  disputed  very  sharply  before 
the  Revolution,  and  in  every  step  during  the  Revolution.  Every  meas 
ure  of  Congress  from  1774  to  1787,  inclusively,  Avas  disputed  with  acri 
mony,  and  decided  by  as  small  majorities  as  any  question  is  decided  in 
these  days."  10  John  Adams's  Works,  23.  u  The  Revolution,"  observes 
John  Jay,  February  28th,  1800,  "  found  and  left  only  two  primary  parties, 
viz.,  the  Whigs,  who  succeeded,  and  the  Tories,  who  were  suppressed."  2 
John  Jay's  Life,  293.  Jefferson,  in  a  more  impassioned  strain,  wrote  to 
the  same  general  effect,  May  3d,  1802.  See  4  Jefferson's  Works,  437. 

I  1  Franklin's  Autobiography  (Uigelow),  245.     January,  1731. 


52  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

the  problem  of  reconciling  union  with  British  allegiance  en 
gaged  thoughtful  minds  throughout  that  dull  three-quarters  of 
a  century  which  preceded  the  Stamp  Act.  The  overshot  of  a 
headstrong  king  brought  the  Whigs  of  America  quickly  to  this 
only  tenable  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter:  "Leave  allegi 
ance  to  its  chances,  but  join  against  tyranny,  or  die."  Parties 
hitherto  provincial  and  trivial,  joined  in  serried  phalanx. 
Committees  of  correspondence,  the  secret  order  known  as  the 
"  Sons  of  Liberty,"  and  finally  a  Continental  Congress,  worked 
the  colonial  Whigs  into  resistants,  then  revolutionists.  Colo 
nial  Tories,  on  the  other  hand, — men  who  from  one  motive  or 
another  adhered  to  their  monarch  and  British  allegiance, — 
were  the  non-resistants.  In  this  sharp  division  political  oppo 
nents  became  bloody  foes  ;  and  our  later  Whig  was  not  the  Pitt 
man,  the  mere  opponent  of  Lord  North's  ministry,  but  the 
king's  rebel,  armed  for  union  and  liberty.  "Tory "was  a 
hateful  word  in  America  after  the  patriot  cause  triumphed. 

From  the  moment  the  Whigs  of  the  several  Colonies  came 
into  full  concert,  and  throughout  our  whole  Revolutionary  War, 
these  new  elements  of  political  dissension  appeared  :  (1.)  A 
jealousy  of  the  larger  Colonies  or  States,  entertained  by  the 
smaller ;  compelling  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  to.  various  sac 
rifices,  for  the  sake  of  harmony.  (2.)  A  rivalry  between  South 
and  North  ;  or,  to  speak  with  more  exactness,  between  the  New 
England  Colonies  or  States  and  those  south  of  Pennsylvania ; 
the  middle  section  serving  as  a  makeweight.  This,  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  was  not  a  direct  issue  between  free  and 
slave  institutions,  but  rather  between  one  section,  whose  inter 
ests  were  manufacturing  and  commercial,  and  another,  purely 
agricultural  and  devoted  entirely  to  raising  great  staples  for  a 
foreign  market.  (3.)  British  tastes  and  a  disposition  to  pat 
tern  after  the  British  model,  as  against  a  sympathy  with 
France,  our  firm  ally,  and  the  new  French  school  of  philoso 
phers.  (4.)  Among  inhabitants  of  every  quarter  a  division  of 
sentiment,  as  favoring  sovereignty  in  the  Colony  or  State,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  ancient  object  of  a  settler's  pride,  and  on 
the  other  the  central  government,  union,  or  confederacy,  under 
whose  stars  and  stripes  we  marched  to  victory.  Herein  were 
the  germs  of  national  party  divisions  in  America 


1787.  PARTIES   AT   CLOSE   OF   THE   WAR.  53 

But  it  was  the  last  element  which  most  powerfully  operated. 
When  the  war  ended,  the  Whig  name  had  been  swallowed  up 
in  that  broader  one  of  patriot  and  American.  As  for  Tories, 
the  few  who  had  not  fled  remained  in  political  obscurity,  irre 
sponsible  as  to  passing  eveiu,-.  State  pride  now  increased  as 
tho  Union  languished.  The  road  to  popularity  in  each  State 
was  to  inspire  an  unfounded  jealousy  of  the  powers  of  Con 
gress.  But  political  issues  from  1783  to  1787  were  chiefly 
local  and  uninteresting;  moderate  and  radical  Whigs  wran 
gling  over  the  treatment  of  Tories,  whereby  the  former  set  pro 
cured  in  New  York  and  some  other  States  a  partial  repeal  of 
the  harsher  confiscation  acts  ;  friends  of  order  combining  to 
hold  the  lawless  and  extravagant  in  check ;  framers  of  State 
constitutions  advocating  one  thing  and  another.  Nowhere 
were  local  politics  more  violent  than  in  Pennsylvania,  where 
the  people  of  the  State,  at  the  time  of  the  Philadelphia  Con 
vention,  were  ranged  in  two  opposing  parties — the  one  styled 
"Republican,"  seeking  to  amend  the  State  constitution,  so  as 
to  give  the  government  greater  stability  ;  the  other,  or  "  Con 
stitutional,"  opposing  all  change. 

On  the  whole  the  tendency  of  parties  from  1783  to  1787  was 
to  denationalize  and  crumble  into  fragments.  An  organiza 
tion  of  national  parties,  on  ballot-box  issues,  was  indeed  un 
known  in  America  prior  to  the  Philadelphia  Convention.  How 
little  the  simplest  mechanism  of  national  parties  was  appre 
ciated,  the  debates  in  that  body  on  the  Executive  clearly  evince. 
But  newspaper  discussion  had  fixed  the  public  attention  upon 
national  affairs,  and  the  same  forces  which  brought  delegates  to 
Philadelphia  were  at  work  shaping  a  new  popular  movement. 

No  sooner  was  the  plan  of  a  new  Federal  constitution  pub 
lished  than  the  political  mustering  began.  Local  issues  were 
postponed  or  absorbed  into  the  broader  national  one,  and  in  a 
brief  space  the  whole  country  was  studded  with  the  camps  of 
two  great  political  parties. 

The  initiative  in  this  short  and  sharp  campaign  belonged, 
of  course,  to  the  friends  of  the  proposed  constitution.  With 
that  diversion  of  epithets  for  political  effect  which  is  so  com 
mon  where  partisans  have  the  chance  to  name  opponents  as 


54  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

well  as  themselves,  the  constitutionalists  called  themselves 
Federalists,  and  their  adversaries  Anti-Federalists.  The  party 
name  of  Federalist  has  since  become  historical ;  and  yet,  to 
speak  logically,  it  was  the  Anti-Federal  party  that  sustained 
a  federal  plan,  while  the  Federalist  contended  for  one  more 
nearly  national. 

The  first  thing  was  to  get  the  Continental  Congress  to  sanc 
tion  the  work  of  the  convention.  This  decent  formality  had 
been  prescribed  for  satisfying  the  scrupulous  delegates.  Need 
ful  or  otherwise,  the  sanction  was  not  long  withheld.  Many 
Congressional  delegates  had  taken  part  in  the  convention. 
Hastening  back  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York  they  joined 
their  fellows,  and  in  less  than  a  fortnight  Congress 
had  resolved,  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  States,  to 
transmit  the  proposed  constitution  to  the  several  State  legisla 
tures  for  each  State  convention  to  act  upon.*  It  was  a  bitter 
cud  for  Congress  to  swallow  without  chewing,  but  pride  was 
useless. 

The  several  States  thus  quickly  became  the  accepted  battle 
ground  of  parties ;  and  for  the  Federalists  to  win  it  was  indis- 
.pensable  that  in  nine  out  of  the  thirteen  States  a  popular  con 
vention  should  be  suitably  summoned,  suitably  made  up,  and 
brought  to  a  suitable  decision.  Unanimity  in  Congress  meant 
little,  for  this  had  been  obtained  by  waiving  all  expression  of 
approval  or  disapproval,  and  leaving  the  sovereign  members 
of  the  Confederacy  to  act  as  its  people  should  think  fit.  Nei 
ther  Federal  candidates  for  office  nor  a  Federal  polioy  entered 
as  yet  into  the  momentous  issue,  which  was  simply  whether  to 
accept  or  reject  the  new  plan  of  government  now  offered. 

The  same  delicate  regard  for  popular  susceptibilities,  which 
influenced  the  choice  of  a  party  name,  the  Federalists  con 
tinued  to  show  in  managing  their  cause.  They  did  not  so 
much  claim  that  the  proposed  constitution  would  nationalize 
and  consolidate  the  Union,  as  that  it  promised  to  restore  civil 
order  and  bring  our  complex  forces  into  due  harmony.  They 
boasted  little  of  the  merits  of  the  new  plan,  but  rather  sought 
to  persuade  the  people  that  this  was  the  best  attainable,  with- 

*  Elliot's  Debates ;  1  Madison's  Papers. 


1787.  FEDERALISTS   AND   ANTI-FEDERALISTS.  55 

out  whose  acceptance  disunion  was  certain.  The  achievement 
of  bringing  the  most  trusted  men  from  all  sections  into  con 
vention,  and  committing  so  many  of  them  to  the  published 
results,  went  far  towards  organizing  their  party  for  action. 
It  was  much  in  favor  of  such  a  party,  too,  that  a  definite 
remedy  was  offered  and  not  a  mere  diagnosis  of  the  disease.  Fi 
nally,  hope  wars  on  the  side  of  those  who  take  the  initiative. 

The  Anti-Federalists,  on  the  other  hand,  hastily  gathering  to 
act  upon  the  defensive,  had  the  disadvantage  in  point  of  disci 
pline  and  purpose.  As  for  feasible  counter-projects,  they  had 
none  to  propose.  But  their  aggregate  was  large  in  some  of 
the  leading  States;  they  could  afford  to  lose  much  if  they 
kept  little  of  the  country ;  and  State  pride,  prejudice,  inertia, 
the  fear  of  new  ills,  all  aided  on  their  side. 

Between  these  two  parties  the  people  balanced  in  opinion. 
The  press  and  platform  offered  a  common  medium  for  persua 
sion,  and  for  the  next  ten  months  America  became  a  debating- 
school.  The  Federalists  had  the  ablest  writers  and,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  the  most  impressive  speakers.  Men  who  had 
studied  history  well  before  they  went  to  Philadelphia,  and 
heard  there  in  secret  session  all  that  was  likely  to  be  urged  for 
and  against  each  article,  now  approached  public  discussion  as 
from  a  private  rehearsal.  They  knew  the  whole  anatomy  of  their 
structure  and  had  felt  every  bone.  Except  for  a  few  of  their 
own  refractory  brethren,  not  all  of  whom  were  open  malcon 
tents,  they  could  leave  the  opposition  to  find  out  the  weak 
spots  of  a  finished  constitution  as  best  they  might.  For  after 
the  country  had  watched  the  locked  doors  of  Independence 
Hull  for  a  whole  summer,  stirred  by  rumors  at  one  time  that 
the  convention  would  break  up  in  disorder,  at  another  that 
the  crown  of  America  was  to  be  offered  to  an  English  peer, 
suddenly  the  portals  were  thrown  open,  and  a  plan  of  union 
entirely  new  appeared  ;  not  the  amendment  propositions  many 
had  looked  for,  but  something  to  supersede  the  Articles  alto 
gether. 

In  the  courseof  this  discussion,  the  Anti-Federalists  urged  the 
following  as  their  chief  objections  to  adopting  the  new  Con 
stitution  :  States  would  be  consolidated,  and  their  sovereignty 
crushed  ;  personal  liberty  would  be  endangered,  since  no  secu- 


56  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

rity  was  furnished  for  freedom  of  speech  and  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  nor  assurance  adequate  against  arbitrary  arrest  or  forci 
ble  seizure  and  the  denial  of  jury  trials  in  civil  cases  ;  stand 
ing  armies,  too,  were  placed  under  too  little  restraint.  Making 
the  President  re-eligible  indefinitely  was  too  much  like  giving 
a  life  tenure  to  the  executive  office.  To  these  general  objec 
tions  Virginia  gave  the  keynote.  Others  appealed  more 
to  local  interests ;  such  as  the  sacrifice  of  representation  in 
Congress  by  smaller  States,  and  the  surrender  of  commercial 
independence.  The  South  feared  that  a  Federal  judiciary 
might  enforce  the  collection  of  British  debts  under  the  treaty 
of  peace.  Those  who  favored  dismembering  old  States  in 
order  to  form  new  ones  were  of  course  .dissatisfied  ;  likewise 
the  friends  of  State  paper  money,  stay  laws,  and  repudiation. 

Much  of  the  Anti-Federal  criticism  was  just,  and  such  par 
ticularly  as  inferred  the  need  of  a  fuller  bill  of  rights.  But, 
as  often  happens  where  one  theorizes  upon  a  political  scheme 
not  yet  reduced  to  practice,  the  weakest  parts  of  the  Constitu 
tion  escaped  animadversion.  Through  a  defective  arrange 
ment  of  the  electoral  clockwork  we  scarcely  escaped  anarchy 
the  fourth  time  it  was  applied;  but  this  defect  no  one  appears 
to  have  pointed  out.  And  as  for  the  concessions  to  slavery, 
scarcely  an  Anti-Federalist  opened  his  mouth  to  object  to 
them.  Not  a  single  ratifying  State  offered  an  anti-slavery 
amendment,  though  numerous  other  changes  were  proposed.* 

The  Federalists,  while  admitting  that  the  proposed  plan 
had  faults,  began  by  refuting  objections  and  insisting  that 
nothing  better  could  have  been  framed  in  the  general  interest 
of  the  Union.  This  presently  led  to  a  complete  exposition  of 


*  Chief  among  the  anti-slavery  objectors  in  local  conventions  were 
Colonel  Mason  and  John  Tyler,  in  Virginia,  and  Messrs.  Dow  and 
Atherton,  in  New  Hampshire ;  besides  one  or  two  ridiculous  speakers 
in  the  Massachusetts  Convention  whose  names  need  not  be  mentioned. 
Wilson,  in  Pennsylvania,  Madison,  in  Virginia,  and  a  few  other  Federal 
delegates  argued  that  the  new  Constitntion,  with  reference  to  slaves, 
afforded  on  the  whole  more  encouragement  for  the  emancipation  cause 
than  the  Federal  system  then  existing.  Zachariah  Johnson  in  the  Vir 
ginia  Convention  made  a  manly  avowal  of  emancipation  sentiments. 
Sec  1-4  Elliot's  Debates,  passim. 


1787.  THE   FEDERALIST   ESSAYS.  67 

the  new  plan,  article  by  article,  in  the  public  prints.  By  far 
the  most  remarkable  production  of  the  latter  sort  is  preserved 
in  a  collection  of  essays  which  borrow  the  party  style  of"  The 
Federalist."  Eighty-five  in  number,  short,  pithy,  and  ani 
mated,  their  publication  was  rapid,  beginning  during  October 
in  a  New  York  newspaper.  They  were  designed  more  ex 
pressly  to  influence  opinion  in  the  close  State  of  New  York, 
but  they  made  an  abiding  impression  through  the  country. 
Written  in  a  tone  singularly  free  from  arrogance  or  party 
cant,  and  yet  persuasive,  with  warmth  of  coloring  and  skill  in 
historical  illustrations,  as  if  from  the  pen  of  some  profound 
observer  who  seeks  to  impress  upon  others  the  convictions 
which  a  thorough  examination  has  forced  upon  himself,  the 
Federalist  won  the  sober  sense  of  the  community,  which  was 
ultimately  to  decide  the  issue,  more  than  all  other  campaign 
documents  together.  Even  at  this  day,  despite  the  corrections 
of  experience,  the  Federalist  stands  as  the  best  commentary 
upon  the  American  Constitution  ever  written,  and  a  safe  text 
book  of  American  politics.  The  publication  of  these  essays 
was  over  a  Roman  pseudonyrne,  after  the  fashion  then  preva 
lent  among  newspaper  contributors  ;  but  the  merit  of  author 
ship  belongs  to  Hamilton,  in  company  with  Madison  and  Jay. 
Hamilton  was  the  directing  spirit  of  the  work,  and  probably 
originated  the  plan;  and  nothing  could  better  illustrate  his 
skill  as  an  advocate  and  versatility  than  the  ease  with  which 
he  now  expounded  a  constitution  which  he  did  little  to  make, 
and  only  half  believed  in.* 


*  The  impersonal  character  of  the  Federalist  essays  and  their  literary 
permanence  has  fostered  a  controversy  in  later  years  over  the  authorship  of 
certain  numbers.  Hamilton's  son  asserts  that  his  father  wrote  Go  out  of 
the  85  essays,  and  Madison  only  14  ;  3  others  being  the  joint  product  of 
Hamilton  and  Madison.  3  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic,  352.  Madison's 
biographer  claims,  on  the  other  hand,  and  upon  what  appears  reasona 
ble  evidence,  that  Madison  wrote  29  of  the  essays,  including  some  of 
the  most  important.  2  Rives' s  Madison,  483-503 ;  3  Madison's  Writ 
ings,  99.  Jay's  share  in  the  work  was  limited  apparently  to  5  essays. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  later  political  alienation  of  Hamilton  and 
Madison,  who  at  this  period  worked  so  splendidly  together,  should  have 
caused  a  personal  feud  to  be  transmitted  to  their  respective  descendants. 
Historical  justice  seeks  only  the  truth,  while  political  biographers,  dev- 


58  HISTOIIY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

Before  the  end  of  1787  the  central  tier  of  States,  Delaware, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey,  had  taken  favorable  action 
upon  the  new  plan  of  union.  Their  respective  conventions 
ratified  in  December,  and  within  a  few  days  of  one  another.* 
The  Pennsylvania  body  assembled  first ;  but  that  of  Delaware, 
meeting  shortly  after,  gained  the  first  honor  by  prompt  and 
unanimous  action.  The  example  of  wealthy  and  powerful 
Pennsylvania  was  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the  Federalists,  who 
owed  no  little  of  their  inspiration  to  the  steadiness  of  her  grand 
cohort  at  Philadelphia.  There  was  some  political  strategy, 
however,  perhaps  violence,  in  securing  this  ratification  ;  for 
scarcely  had  the  Philadelphia  convention  dispersed  before  the 
Republicans  of  Pennsylvania  improved  the  opportunity  of 
their  temporary  ascendency  in  the  legislature  to  summon  a 
State  convention,  regardless  of  the  minority  and  those  desiring 
to  measure  their  strength  at  the  polls.f  Through  this  conven 
tion  the  Federal  Constitution  was  carried  in  a  whirlwind  ; 
Wilson  and  McKean  being  its  strongest  advocates,  and  the 
vote  for  adoption  standing  46  to  23.  In  New  Jersey,  the 
third  ratifying  State,  the  vote  of  the  convention  was  unani 
mous. 

otees"  and  kinsfolk  particularly,  are  too  prone  to  mantle  their  heroes  in 
those  affairs  of  mankind  to  which  a  thousand  influences  may  have  con 
tributed  ;  and  such  claims  should  be  taken  with  much  allowance. 

The  New  York  city  newspaper  in  which  the  first  of  the  Federalist 
essays  appeared  was  the  Independent  Journal.  The  essays  were  is 
sued  in  book  form  about  March,  1788.  The  original  signature  of  the 
first  essay  was  "A  Citizen  of  New  York;"  but  "Publius"  (the  name 
which  comes  down  to  us,  i.  e.,  Valerius  Publicola)  was  afterwards  adopted 
by  the  joint  authors.  See  authorities,  supra  ;  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Federalist, 
Introduction. 

*  Delaware  ratified  December  3d,  1787  ;  Pennsylvania,  December  13th ; 
New  Jersey,  December  19th. 

f  When  the  vote  for  holding  a  convention  was  taken  in  the  Pennsyl 
vania  legislature,  in  whose  single  house  the  Republicans  had  the  ma 
jority,  the  Constitutionalists  tried,  by  absenting  themselves,  to  prevent  a 
quorum.  But  a  band  of  Philadelphians  went  after  two  of  the  absentees, 
seized  them,  dragged  them  forcibly  to  the  State  House,  and  pushed  them 
into  the  legislative  assembly.  The  door  was  closed  upon  them,  and 
with  a  quorum  thus  secured  the  vote  was  carried.  Westcott's  Historic 
Mansions,  p.  124. 


1788.  RATIFYING   STATES.  59 


During  January  of  the  new  year  two  States,  from  opposite 
quarters  of  the  Union,  gave  in  their  adhesion  to  the       I7gg 
new  plan  of  government:  Georgia  and  Connecticut. 
The  former  ratified  unanimously,  the  latter  by  a  handsome 
majority.* 

But  by  this  time  the  first  enthusiasm  of  the  cause  had  spent 
itself,  and  the  real  toil  commenced.  The  Anti-Federalists, 
unprepared  at  the  first  onset,  were  at  last  fully  organized,  and 
in  most  of  the  States  whose  conventions  were  yet  to  act  devel 
oped  unexpected  strength.  Rhocte  Island  had  refused  to  call 
a  convention  at  all.  It  was  certain  that  thirteen  States  would 
not  for  the  present  ratify,  nor  even  twelve.  Five  States  had 
joined  the  standard  of  the  constitution ;  nine,  however,  were 
requisite  ;  and  which  should  be  the  other  four? 

It  was  for  the  Massachusetts  convention  to  j 
turn  the  scales.  That  venerable  commonwealth, 
which  had  never  slept,  was  now  strangely  distracted  in  what 
promised  to  be  a  numerical  count  between  the  sheep  and 
goats.  Wealth,  culture,  and  intelligence  sided  with  the  Fed 
eralists.  Here  were  the  orthodox  clergy,  very  influential  in 
town  meetings,  college  men  and  lawyers;  property-holders, 
who  wanted  no  more  jack-o-lantern  rebellions  ;  and  merchants, 
who  welcomed  the  prospect  of  a  firm  commercial  establish 
ment.  To  a  long  array  of  distinguished  civilians,  all  in  favor 
of  the  Constitution,  were  added  in  the  convention  the  best  mili 
tary  talent  of  the  State, — Knox,  Heath,  Lincoln,  and  Brooks. 
But  this  very  preponderance  of  learning,  renown,  and  social 
respectability  on  the  Federal  side — so  great  as  to  leave  Samuel 
Adams  and  the  facile  governor  almost  alone  in  maintaining 
a  cautious  reserve — huddled  all  the  more  closely  together  a 
large  opposition  force  whose  votes  could  not  be  ignored.  No 
where  did  Anti-Federalism  appear  so  ludicrous  in  convention, 
if  we  may  trust  the  authentic  report,  as  in  this  State.f  Long 
haired  folks,  bumpkins,  green  radicals,  and  training-day  gen- 

*  Georgia  ratified  January  2d,  1788;  Connecticut,  January  9th. 

f  See  2  Elliot's  Debates ;  Boston  Centinel.  The  only  authentic  de 
bates  of  the  Massachusetts  Convention  have  been  reported  by  a  Feder 
alist  editor,  who  possibly  dealt  unfairly  with  the  opposition  speakers. 


60  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

erals  came  up  to  Boston  from  their  rural  constituencies  to  cut 
their  awkward  antics,  and  then  vanish  like  Ariel's  shapes. 
Most  of  this  unripe  fruit  were  windfalls  of  the  Shays  tem 
pest,  but  the  Maine  separatists  were  likewise  in  force.  Against 
the  stubborn  Widgerys,  Nasons,  and  Singletarys,  and  their 
Bombastes,  General  Thompson,  Federalists  so  weighty  as  Par 
sons,  Ames,  King,  and  Bowdoin  appeared  like  hired  counsel 
trying  to  win  over  a  suspicious  jury.  Hancock  and  Adams, 
indeed,  were  the  only  men  in  the  convention  who  could  influ 
ence  such  a  set;  and  to  procure  their  aid  the  exhausted  Fed 
eralists  at  last  addressed  their  efforts.  A  demonstration  of 
Boston  mechanics  was  got  up  to  brace  the  great  commoner ; 
while  Governor  Hancock,  the  presiding  officer  in  the  conven 
tion,  was  flattered  at  the  idea  of  playing  the  general  mediator. 
But  this  alliance  was  not  made  without  the  Federal  conces 
sion  that  Massachusetts,  while  ratifying,  should  submit  desira 
ble  amendments.  The  amendments,  nine  in  number,  whose 
main  purport  was  the  better  security  of  individual  rights,  were 
drawn  up  by  Parsons.  These  the  governor,  according  to  un 
derstanding,  presented  as  his  own,  with  a  graceful  and  mod 
erate  speech  ;  Adams  following  in  a  similar  strain.  This 
manoeuvre  won  the  waverers;  though,  even  on  such  terms,  the 
convention  ratified  by  the  close  vote  of  187  to  168.  In  this 
victory  of  tact  and  good-temper  Boston  and  the  large  towns 
prevailed  over  the  sparse  districts.  Gerry,  as  a  Philadelphia 
delegate,  had  been  honored  with  a  seat;  but  the  Federalists 
checkmated  those  who  had  hoped  much  from  his  presence  by 
taking  care  that  he  should  not  be  allowed  to  debate,  but  only 
to  enlighten  the  convention  as  to  facts.* 

Massachusetts'  actiontdecided  the  country,  though  too  slowly 
for  the  Anti-Federalists  to  perceive  their  danger  or  how  they 
had  been  outflanked.  It  was  not  alone  the  example  of  that 
essential  State,  but  her  methods  of  amendment  solved  the 
whole  difficulty  with  the  people  at  the  right  moment.  This 
flank  movement  literally  saved  the  Federalist  cause  from  dis 
aster;  for  the  Constitution,  as  it  came  from  Philadelphia, 
could  not  have  been  carried,  as  events  proved.  Had  the 
Anti-Federalists  of  other  States  wisely  accepted  this  as  a  com- 

*  Massachusetts  ratified  February  Cth,  1788. 


1788.  RATIFYING   STATES.  61 

promise,  their  party  might  have  claimed  half  the  triumph  as 
theirs.  But,  with  their  strongest  position  turned,  they  now  took 
their  narrow  stand  upon  utter  rejection,  reckless  of  what  this 
might  lead  to.  The  Federalists,  with  more  intelligence,  made 
this  new  resource  their  own,  and  confiding  rightly  in  the  good 
sense  of  the  people,  insured  to  themselves  not  only  victory  but 
the  best  fruits  of  it. 

New  Hampshire  should  have  acted  next ;  but  the  conven 
tion  of  that  State,  meeting  in  February,  adjourned 
over  until  after  the  spring  elections.     A  feverish 
intermission  followed.     Meantime  the  Anti-Federalists  of  New 
York  and  Virginia  were  pressing  the  Pennsylvania  Constitu 
tionalists  to  rally  once  more,  in  the  hope  of  reversing   the 
favorable  action  of  that  State. 

Maryland's  convention  met  in  the  latter  part  of  April,  and 
after  a  session  of  seven  days  ratified  by  63  to  11 

April  21-26. 

and  unreservedly.    Samuel  Chase,  of  Revolutionary 

fame,  and  the  eccentric  Luther  Martin,  statesmen  vehement 

but  overbearing,  united  in  vain  to  prevent  this  decision.* 

In  South  Carolina  a  convention  assembled  May  12th.  The 
Federalists,  marshalled  by  the  Pinckueys,  were  here  successful, 
and  ratification  was  carried  by  a  handsome  majority.  The 
chief  battle  with  Anti-Federalists  had  been  fought  in 

.„  •     •>    ,          May  12-23. 

the  legislature.  Katmcation  was  accompanied  by 
the  proposal  of  amendments ;  and,  to  South  Carolina's  lasting 
honor,  it  should  be  added,  the  convention  deliberately  refused 
to  wait  and  see  what  action  Virginia  might  take,  but  cast  in 
the  lot  of  their  State  with  the  Union,  as  though  to  dare  the 
risk  of  isolation.f 

*  2  Elliot's  Debates.  There  was  a  movement  in  this  Convention  for 
proposing  amendments,  hut  the  convention  adjourned  without  taking 
decisive  action  upon  the  question. 

f  See  4  Elliot's  Debates.  Kawlins  Lowndes  voiced  the  minority  in 
a  brilliant  speech  before  the  State  legislature.  South  Carolina's  right  to 
import  slaves,  he  argued,  ought  not  to  be  fettered ;  but  the  Congress,  as 
constituted  under  this  new  plan,  would  come  at  last  to  deprive  the  people 
of  slavery.  Thus  would  the  Constitution  prove  ruinous  to  the  liberty 
of  America;  for,  declares  Lowndes,  "without  negroes  this  State  would 
degenerate  into  one  of  the  most  contemptible  in  the  Union." 

The  South  Carolina  Convention  ratiiied  by  a  large  majority  of  7G  ;  the 
vote  standing  149  to  73. 


62  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

South  Carolina  was  the  eighth  ratifying  State.  One  more 
and  the  Constitution  was  carried.  But  neither  Rhode  Island 
nor  North  Carolina  would  now  accede  ;  hence  the  Federalists 
had  to  look  to  New  Hampshire,  New  York,  and  Virginia,  all 
of  them  hopeful  but  none  certain.  The  close  division  of  pub 
lic  sentiment  in  the  two  latter  States,  where  Anti-Federalism 
kept  strongly  intrenched,  had  been  the  sorest  disappointment 
of  all  to  the  Federalist  party. 

The  New  York  Anti-Federalists  were  directed  by  the  iron 
hand  of  Governor  Clinton,  a  man  of  patriotism,  long  trusted 
at  the  head  of  affairs,  honest  and  capable.  His  ambition  was 
devoted  to  furthering  the  commercial  interests  of  his  native 
State,  whose  rising  opportunities  he  clearly  foresaw,  and  cared 
for  little  else.  By  his  social  influence  and  the  use  of  official 
patronage  he  had  defeated  the  impost  amendment  in  that  State, 
and  he  was  as  willing  New  York  should  thwart  the  Union 
single-handed  now  as  then.  When  the  State  legislature  met 
in  January  he  laid  the  recommendation  of  Congress  before  it 
so  unconcernedly  that  resolutions  for  holding  a  State  conven 
tion  did  not  pass  until  February,  and  then  only  by 
a  bare  majority. 

In  Virginia,  whose  convention  met  at  Richmond  in  June,  the 
great  parties  contended  on  more  equal  terms  than  in 
any  other  State  of  the  Confederacy.  On  this  soil  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  Anti-Federalism  found  its  Yorktown  as 
British  supremacy  and  Cornwallis  had  done  before.  Prominent 
among  Anti-Federalists  in  the  Virginia  Convention  was  George 
Mason,  a  delegate  who  had  left  Philadelphia  bitterly  hostile 
to  the  new  plan.  Monroe,  a  man  of  rising  repute,  acted,  but 
with  more  moderation,  on  the  same  side.  Their  recognized 
party  leader,  however,  was  the  renowned  Patrick  Henry,  fore 
most  of  Virginia's  sons  to  urge  the  union  of  the  Colonies 
against  the  king,  yet  a  lover  of  his  State  at  all  times  beyond 
the  lightest  or  strongest  American  Union.  Simple  in  his  man; 
ners,  wearing  the  dress  of  a  plain  farmer,  a  man  of  no  great 
scholarship,  rugged,  unpolished,  and  even  ungrammatical  in 
common  speech,  he  was  nevertheless  a  master  of  the  human  pas 
sions,  and,  like  all  of  the  world's  great  orators,  an  orator  on  great 
occasions.  He  had  filled  the  highest  stations  Virginia  could 


1787.  THE   VIRGINIA   CONVENTION.  63 

bestow,  and  with  his  known  contempt  for  wider  honors  he  was 
the  idol  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

On  the  Federal  side  Washington  was  the  silent  watch- 
tower.  Though  taking  no  open  part  in  the  political  contest 
which  followed  the  Philadelphia  convention,  his  personality 
was  all-pervading.  With  his  usual  persuasive  delicacy  ho 
had  on  his  return  to  Mount  Vernon  promptly  mailed  to  Henry 
a  copy  of  the  new  Constitution,  avowing  this  plan  to  be,  in 
his  own  estimation,  the  best  obtainable  ;  calling  attention  fur 
thermore  to  the  article  which  permitted  future  amendment, 
and  impressively  declaring  that  our  political  concerns  were 
"suspended  by  a  thread."*  But  in  his  own  State  Washington 
was  less  of  a  demigod  than  elsewhere ;  and  the  orator  at  all 
events  was  not  won.  For  active  warfare,  Madison  continued 
the  great  reliance  of  Virginia  Federalists.  Upon  Washing 
ton's  advice  he  had  left  Congress  and  run  for  the  State  con 
vention,  to  which  he  was  elected.  The  venerable  Chancellor 
Wythc  pronounced  for  ratification  ;  so,  too,  after  some  hedging, 
did  Governor  Randolph,  much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  other  non- 
signers.  Edmund  Peudleton,  a  citizen  crowned  with  years  and 
State  honors,  presided  over  the  convention;  his  few  well-chosen 
words  in  favor  of  the  new  experiment  made  a  memorable  im 
pression.  John  Marshall,  tall,  gawky,  bright-eyed,  a  rising 
member  of  the  Richmond  bar,  laid  here  the  foundation  of  his 
national  fame  as  a  Federal  speaker. 

In  this  close  division  of  native  talent,  another  favorite  son 
of  Virginia  swayed  the  convention.  This  was  Jefferson,  still 
serving  abroad  on  the  French  mission  but  dominating  the 
liberal  element  by  the  letters  he  wrote  home.  A  man  of  cul 
ture,  whose  taste  inclined  to  scientific  and  speculative  studies, 
and  endowed  as  an  orphan  with  an  ample  fortune  for  gratifying 
it,  Jefferson,  who  in  less  stirring  times  might  have  spent  his 
prime  at  the  head  of  a  college,  carne  early  into  revolutionary 
politics,  and  by  a  single  composition  immortalized  his  name 
when  scarcely  thirty-three  years  old.  More  recently  as  gov 
ernor  of  Virginia  and  a  leader  in  legislative  reforms  he  had 
gained  a  State  prestige,  which  four  years'  absence  could  not 

*  9  Washington's  Writings. 


64  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

seriously  impair;  for  he  was  no  orator,  but  his  eloquence  lay 
first  in  fascinating  conversation,  next  in  a  sympathetic  pen, 
which  spoke  for  him  when  he  was  seas  away.  Jefferson  as  a 
statesman  was  original,  with  experimental  tendencies  in  the 
direction  of  the  broadest  philanthropy.  No  American  of  his 
age  trusted  compulsory  rule  so  little  or  believed  so  much  in 
self-go vernmeiit.  Leaving  a  hearthstone  made  desolate  by 
the  death  of  a  loved  wife,  and  reaching  France  at  the  moment 
the  old  regime  was  collapsing,  he  threw  himself  with  more 
ardor  into  the  arms  of  the  French  democracy  and  took  closer 
counsel  of  French  philosophy,  with  its  radiance  of  human  faith 
and  penumbra  of  religious  skepticism,  than  his  riper  experience 
approved.  His  disgust  with  kings  and  the  pomp  of  courts 
was  profound.  "  There  is  not  a  crowned  head  in  Europe,"  he 
wrote  at  this  period,  "  whose  talents  or  merits  would  entitle 
him  to  be  elected  a  vestryman  by  the  people  of  any  parish  in 
America."* 

Jefferson  had  sailed  from  America  in  1785  impressed  with 
the  belief  that  a  few  amendments  would  give  the  Confederacy 
all  the  bracing  needful.  Nor  had  even  the  Shays  insurrection 
much  shaken  his  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  old  system.  Of 
the  constitutional  movement  Madison  had  kept  him  informed 
at  each  stage  ;  but  Jefferson  manifested  only  the  interest  of  a 
statesman  open  to  conviction.  When  a  copy  of  the  proposed 
Constitution  reached  him,  his  first  impression  was  equally  favor 
able  and  unfavorable  ;  he  liked  the  idea  of  a  central  govern 
ment  which  should  go  on  without  recurrence,  to  the  States; 
likewise  the  divorce  of  executive  and  judiciary  from  the  leg 
islature,  and  the  Congress  of  two  houses ;  but  his  disappoint 
ment  was  so  great  on  finding  that  the  instrument  contained  no 
bill  of  rights,  so  as  clearly  to  provide  for  freedom  of  religion, 
freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  against  standing  armies,  re 
straint  of  monopolies,  trials  by  jury  in  civil  cases  and  an 
eternal  force  of  habeas  corpus;  and,  furthermore,  he  so  dis 
liked  giving  up  rotation  in  the  Presidential  office,  whose  term 
he  would  have  fixed  absolutely  at  seven  years  as  originally 
proposed,  that  he  declared  himself  indifferent,  "  nearly  a 

*  2  Jefferson's  Works,  375. 


1788.  THE   VIRGINIA   CONVENTION.  65 

neutral."  His  first  letters  expressed  after  this  tenor  were  shown 
among  the  Virginia  leaders,  and  the  Anti-Federalists  claimed 
him  on  their  side,  But  Jefferson  was  neither  so  implacable  nor 
so  unwatchful  of  the  current  of  events  as  they.  Strenuous  still 
for  a  bill  of  rights  aboveall  things, his  mind  turned  to  consider 
ing  whether  this  might  not  in  some  way  be  gained  without  risk 
ing  the  new  plan  altogether.  Perhaps,  he  soon  suggested,  the 
needful  nine  States  might  accept  while  the  rest  held  off  until 
the  change  was  made.  But  the  Massachusetts  proceedings 
gave  him  new  light,  and,  applauding  the  action  of  that  State, 
he  wrote  unhesitatingly  in  May  to  his  friends  that  the  true 
solution  was  to  ratify  but  to  propose  amendments.  "  It  will 
be  more  difficult,"  he  argues,  "  if  we  lose  this  instrument,  to 
recover  what  is  good  in  it  than  to  correct  what  is  bad  after  we 
shall  have  adopted  it.  It  has  therefore  my  hearty  prayers."* 
By  the  time  this  last  letter  reached  Virginia  the  convention 
of  that  State  was  in  labor.  The  Anti-Federalists,  whose 
ground  was  slipping  from  them,  assailed  the  Constitution  at  all 
points  with  blind  fury.  Mason,  whose  present  bitterness  did 
not  quite  consist  in  all  respects  with  his  conduct  most  of  the 
time  he  served  at  Philadelphia,  was  yet  sagacious  and  bold 
enough,  though  a  Southern  slaveholder,  to  prick  the  Constitu 
tion  at  a  most  sensitive  part.  He  stirringly  denounced  the 
slave-trade  section  as  one  which  had  created  more  dangers 
than  any  other.  Neither  he,  however,  nor  John  Tyler,  who 
spoke  in  the  same  strain,  appears  to  have  commented  upon 
the  fugitive  slave  provision.  On  the  other  hand,  Patrick 
Henry  used  the  ultimate  discretion  of  Congress  over  the  slave 
trade  as  an  argument  for  alarming  his  fellow-citizens  into  the 
belief  that  slaves  would  be  forcibly  emancipated  and  armed 
against  their  masters.  Indeed,  if  the  courage  and  impetuosity 
of  this  Anti-Federal  Titan  challenge  our  admiration,  it  is  cer 
tain  that  false  alarms  and  false  logic  were  among  the  weapons 
he  fought  with;  seized,  perhaps,  in  headlong  rage,  rather 
than  chosen  deliberately.  To  the  poor  man  he  appealed,  to 
Southerners  against  Northerners,  to  Kentuckians  against  a 
government  which  might  trade  off  the  Mississippi  navigation,' 

*  See  2  Jefferson's  Works  (A.  D.  1785-88),  passim. 

VOL.  I. — 6 


6£  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

to  those  owing  British  creditors,  to  slaveholders,  to  all  who 
valued  personal  liberty.  "  We  shall  have  a  king,"  he  cries, 
"the  army  will  salute  him  monarch."  Even  the  terrors  of  a 
passing  thunderstorm  were  invoked  in  aid  of  his  rhetoric. 
But  though  the  lightnings  played  and  the  roll  of  distant  artil 
lery  was  heard,  the  bolts  of  his  eloquence  passed  harmlessly  by. 
Having  compelled  a  discussion  which  extended  over  the  whole 
instrument,  clause  by  clause,  the  Anti-Federalists  were  over 
powered.  They  could  not  even  carry  ratification  with  condi 
tions.  By  a  majority  of  10,  the  convention  decided  upon 
immediate  ratification,  accompanied  by  a  long  list 
of  amendments.  Common-sense  and  the  logic  of 
events  won  the  battle.  But  the  Federalists  in  reality  had 
overmatched  their  brilliant  opponents  on  the  floor ;  and  of 
the  calm,  clear,  and  dispassionate  reasoner  who  led  the  debate 
on  the  Federal  side,  one  of  his  colleagues  after  wards  remarked 
that  if  eloquence  includes  persuasion  by  convincing,  Madison 
was  the  most  eloquent  man  he  ever  heard.* 

But  Virginia's  action  was  too  tardy  to  make  her  in  history 
the  ninth  ratifying  State.  For  the  New  Hampshire  conven 
tion,  reassembling  after  a  long  recess,  took  favorable  action 
four  days  sooner  and  made  the  Constitution  secure.f  Hamil 
ton  hastened  a  special  express  to  Richmond  bearing  these 
tidings,  which  probably  reached  the  Virginia  Convention  just 
before  the  decisive  vote  was  taken. J 

The  assurance  that  ten  States  had  now  acceded  to  the  new 

Union,  the  last  of  whom  was  foremost  in  proposing 

it,  made  the  coming  anniversary  of  independence  to 

the  Federalists  a  day  of  unwonted  jubilee.     The  Philadelphia 

*  This  was  said  by  John  Marshall ;  see  2  Rives' s  Madison,  612.  See 
as  to  the  Virginia  proceedings,  3  Elliot's  Debates.  On  the  main  ques 
tion  of  ratification  the  Virginia  Convention  stood  89  to  79. 

f  New  Hampshire  ratified  June  21st  by  57  to  4G  ;  proposing  amend 
ments. 

J  The  remarks  of  Harrison  and  Henry,  June  25th,  indicate  that  the 
news  had  just  arrived.  See  Elliot's  Debates,  C23,  C49.  But  the  Vir 
ginia  Convention  was  all  ready  for  the  question  on  its  merits.  The 
Anti-Federalists  here  had  already  lost  their  cause. 


1788.  RATIFICATION    REJOICINGS.  67 

spectacle  was  the  grandest  Americans  had  ever  witnessed. 
5000  inhabitants,  representing  the  different  trades  and  pro 
fessions,  inarched  in  civic  procession,  the  line  extending  a  mile 
and  a  half.  Every  trade  was  preceded  by  a  stage  on  wheels, 
where  the  mimic  business  was  carried  on.  The  New  Era,  In 
dependence,  the  Frendi  Alliance,  and  other  emblematic  figures 
and  groups  appeared  in  costume.  In  one  car,  shaped  like  an 
eagle,  and  drawn  by  six  horses,  rode  Chief  Justice  McKean 
with  two  of  his  judicial  associates,  bearing  aloft  a  framed  copy 
of  the  Constitution  affixed  to  a  liberty  staff.  Ten  white 
horses  were  attached  to  another  car,  which  was  surmounted 
by  a  structure  representing  the  Federal  Union,  supported  on 
thirteen  columns,  only  three  of  which  were  left  unfinished. 
Ten  vessels  stood  off  in  the  river  bedecked  with  flairs  and 

o 

streamers,  each  displaying  from  the  mast-head  a  white  flag  on 
which  was  emblazoned  in  golden  letters  the  name  of  a  ratify 
ing  State.  In  this  un-European  pageant  the  military  bore 
but  a  secondary  part;  here  the  burgesses  themselves  made 
the  prime  figure,  turning  out  to  pay  a  government  of  laws 
their  spontaneous  tribute. 

If  to  many  the  occasion  meant  that  the  good  ship  "Fed 
eralist"  had  come  into  port,  they  took  care  that  public  ap 
plause  should  be  pitched  to  no  partisan  key.  But  in  Phila 
delphia,  where  the  Constitution  was  immensely  popular,  citi 
zens  united  more  heartily  than  at  most  of  the  other  large 
centres  to  welcome  the  new  epoch.  In  New  York  city  a 
similar  trade  procession  was  deferred  out  of  regard  for  the 
uncertain  State  convention,  and  the  4th  passed  much  as  usual. 
Albany  Federalists  opened  the  day  with  a  salute  of  ten  guns; 
but  the  Anti-Federalists  fired  thirteen  in  return,  and  then 
marching  to  an  open  place,  made  a  public  bonfire  of  the  Con 
stitution  and  a  handbill  which  announced  Virginia's  accession  ; 
the  day  ended  with  a  political  riot.  Riders  were  galloping 
through  the  New  England  towns  all  day  bearing  the  nesvs 
from  Richmond,  which  had  reached  New  York  on  the  2d. 
Nine  pillars  had  be^en  set  up  on  Boston  Common  independence 
morning  and  nine  guns  fired  at  sunrise.  Late  in  the  after 
noon  the  Bostouians  were  told  that  the  Union  now  had  its 
tenth  pillar,  and  they  gave  themselves  up  to  the  wildest  de- 


68  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

light,  turning  out  in  the  evening  with  lighted  candles,  and 
firing  rockets  while  the  bells  rang  a  merry  peal.  But  so  hos 
tile  were  parties  in  Rhode  Island  that  an  Anti-Federal  mob 
from  the  country  broke  into  Providence  on  fourth  of  July 
morning,  and  forced  the  authorities  by  their  threats  to  omit 
from  their  dinner  programme  their  intended  toast  to  the 
"Nine  States."* 

To  the  Anti-Federalists  of  New  York  the  situation  had  now 
become  desperate.  Against  wise  counsellors  like  Hamilton, 
Jay,  and  Chancellor  Livingston,  Clinton  and  his  adjutants 
had  held  the  State  as  in  a  vice,  staking  everything  upon 
Virginia's  co-operation,  and  now  barnacles  and  pier  threat 
ened  to  fall  away  together.  Hemmed  in  on  two  sides  between 
States  well  buttressed,  with  only  a  narrow  sea  frontage  at  the 
apex  formed  by  their  lines,  New  York  now  exposed  her 
vaunted  commerce  to  ruin  should  she  push  an  American 
Congress  to  extremities.  There  was  no  safety  but  to  sound  a 
retreat.  When  the  New  York  Convention  first  assembled  at 
Poughkecpsie,  and  it  seemed  as  if  no  ninth  ratifying 
State  would  come  forward,  two- thirds  of  its  members 
were  reckoned  Anti-Federalists,  and  the  best  the  friends  of  the 
Constitution  could  accomplish  was  tq  gain  time  and  prevent  a 
precipitate  rejection.  Governor  Clinton,  who  presided,  was  a 
forcible  speaker;  nor  were  Lansing  and  Melancthou  Smith 
foemeu  in  argument  for  even  the  brilliant  Hamilton  to  de 
spise.  But  it  was  not  weight  of  argument  that  carried  this 
body  so  much  as  the  failure  of  Anti-Federalism  in  New 
Hampshire  and  Virginia  and  a  public  sentiment  which  could 
no  longer  be  braved.  One  mouth  behind  Virginia,  New  York 
became  the  eleventh  ratifying  State  by  a  bare  ma 
jority.  Numerous  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
were  simultaneously  proposed,  the  adoption  of  which  the 
minority  sought  in  vain  to  establish  as  a  condition  precedent 
to  ratification.f 

*  See  Boston  Chronicle,  Ceutinel,  and  other  papers  of  the  day  ;  Ca 
rey's  Museum  ;  4  Hildreth's  United  States. 

f  On  the  test  vote  taken  July  23d,  the  convention  stood  ol  to  29,  the 
president  recording  his  vote  in  the  negative.  The  final  vote,  July  2Gth, 
stood  30  to  27,  the  president  not  voting.  See  2  Elliot's  Debates ;  and 
see  2  Magazine  Am.  History,  389. 


1788.        RHODE    ISLAND   AND    NORTH    CAROLINA.  69 

Here  for  the  present  the  catalogue  of  ratifying  States  closes, 
Rhode  Island  and  North  Carolina  still  holding  stubbornly 
back.  A  convention  in  the  latter  State  adjourned 
in  August  after  a  fruitless  session.  Of  all  the 
States  little  Rhode  Island  was  the  most  unpatriotic  as  con 
cerned  plans  for  a  new  Union,  for  she  refused  now  to  call  a 
State  convention  with  the  same  pertinacity  she  had  exhibited 
in  refusing  to. send  delegates  to  Philadelphia.*  The  disor 
dered  condition  of  the  State  finances,  and  the  devotion  of  a 
ruling  set  to  paper  money,  which  they  sought  to  force  into  cir 
culation  as  a  legal  tender,  may  chiefly  explain  this  unsisterly 
course.  In  North  Carolina,  too,  inflationists  held  the  balance 
of  power.  The  first  Federal  President  was  chosen,  the  first 
Federal  Congress  assembled,  the  first  Federal  courts  were 
opened,  the  first  Federal  laws  were  promulgated,  and  the  first 
Federal  administration  was  fully  organized  before  the  old 
confederated  thirteen  were  wholly  reconstructed. 

One  disturbing  influence  was  still  left  to  operate  against  the 
new  government.  The  New  York  Convention  had  not  ad 
journed  without  a  mischievous  resolve,  which  the  Federalists 
suffered  to  pass  unanimously,  proposing  to  call  a  second  plen 
ary  convention  from  all  the  States.  No  sooner  had  the  mem 
bers  dispersed  than  Governor  Clinton  prepared  a  circular  letter 
accordingly,  and  sent  it,  as  on  their  behalf,  to  the  other  States. 
The  Virginia  legislature,  in  which  Henry  and  his  friends 
were  still  potent,  at  once  laid  hold  of  the  insidious  invitation, 
and  this  encouraged  the  Pennsylvania  Anti- Federalists  to  show 
their  fangs  once  more.  But  the  general  response  to  the  New 
York  circular  was  not  what  Anti-Federal  leaders  had  hoped 
for.  The  decision  had  been  irrevocably  made ;  the  people 
were  surfeited  with  conventions;  nor  would  a  solitary  ratify 
ing  State  consent  to  be  dragooned  into  a  movement  which 
promised  nothing  but  to  make  the  situation  worse.  Federal 
ists  and  the  moderate  constitutional  reformers  joined  in  depre- 

*  The  recommendation  of  Congress  to  hold  a  State  convention  was 
here  referred,  not  to  the  people,  but  to  the  several  towns,  a  majority  of 
which  voted  against  holding  any. 


70  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  1. 

eating  new  conventions  while  the  convenient  door  of  amend 
ment  stood  so  invitingly  open.* 

Meantime,  the  requisite  number  of  States  having  ratified, 
political  leaders  turned  from  fundamental  principles  to  the 
discussion  of  candidates.  The  Continental  Congress  in  Sep 
tember  set  the  first  Wednesday  of  January,  1789,  lor  the  choice 
of  Presidential  electors,  the  first  Wednesday  of  February  for 
the  electoral  choice  of  a  President  and  Vice-Presideut  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  first  Wednesday  (or  4th  day)  of  March 
for  inaugurating  the  new  government. 

Fortunately  for  America  there  was  one  man  upon  whom 
the  country  leaned  for  this  new  experience  with  equal  confi 
dence  and  safety.  George  Washington,  of  Virginia,  by  the 
voice  of  all  the  States  was  the  chosen  candidate  for  the  Pres 
idency  without  competitor.  Neither  Federalist  nor  Anti-Fed 
eralist  could  claim  him  as  a  party  man  beyond  the  assurance 
he  had  already  given  that  he  was  on  the  Constitutional  side. 

It  was  over  the  Vice- Presidency  that  parties  now  contended; 
an  ofiice  plainly  of  empty  honor  in  itself,  but  thought  to  carry 
a  valuable  estate  in  expectancy.  So  far  as  locality  might  de 
termine  the  choice,  this  would  naturally  fall  to  some  citizen 
of  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  or  Massachusetts.  But  Penn 
sylvania  presented  no  candidate  for  the  office,  and  New  York 
had  forfeited  all  claims  upon  it.  Massachusetts  held  the  prize, 
therefore,  at  her  disposal.  All  her  three  greatest  civilians 
were  considered  by  the  Federalists — Hancock,  SamueJ  Adams, 
and  John  Adams;  but  the  last  profited  by  the  equivocal  part 
the  other  two  had  played  in  State  convention.  Resigning  the 
English  mission  and  reaching  home  in  good  season  to  be  lion 
ized  after  a  long  absence,  he  soon  found  opportunity  to  decline 
a  Massachusetts  Senatonship  and  accept  the  more  conspicuous 
post  of  Vice-Presideut. 

*  The  utmost  the  Virginia  Assembly  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  sanc 
tion  was  a  resolve  requesting  the  coining  Constitutional  Congress  to  call 
a  convention ;  thus  relinquishing  all  attempts  to  forestall  the  action  of  a 
Federal  administration,  and  simply  asking  a  favor  which  certainly  would 
not  be  granted.  See  1  Hamilton's  Works;  2  Rives' s  Madison  ;  1  Madi 
son's  Writings;  2  Jefferson's  Works;  2  Elliot's  Debates. 


1780.  JOHN    ADAMS   FOR   VICE-PRESIDENT.  71 

John  Adams  had  a  national  reputation,  and  well  deserved, 
as  the  Atlas  of  Independence  ;  and  the  names  of  Washington 
and  Adams,  linking  the  warrior  and  civilian  of  '76,  were 
now  fit  to  conjure  with.  But  the  tough  fibre  of  this  burly, 
round-faced,  bald-headed  irascible  man,  who  took  the  second 
honors,  was  little  understood  by  the  people,  to  whom  Con 
gressional  debates  had  been  a  sealed  book  ;  or  by  the  Ham 
ilton  set,  who  now  accepted  him  upon  slight  personal  ac 
quaintance.  A  dull  book,  lately  published,  which  bore  his 
name,  A  Defence  of  the  American  Constitutions,  had,  it  is 
true,  been  pronounced  British  in  tone  by  southern  Anti-Fed 
eralists;  but  by  not  a  few  of  his  supporters  this  was  secretly 
thought  a  recommendation,  while  the  complimentary  title-page 
must  needs  have  pleased  that  great  majority  of  fellow-coun 
trymen  who  would  never  read  farther.  Adams  was  indeed  a 
sincere  American,  and,  as  a  statesman,  very  learned,  though 
somewhat  of  a  dogmatist,  as  frank  in  stating  his  opinions 
as  he  was  independent  in  forming  them.  His  impressions  of 
the  new  Constitution,  formed  abroad  on  inspection,  were  unique; 
he  feared  rather  that  aristocracy  than  monarchy  would  come 
of  it;  he  would  have  had  the  President  more  independent  of 
the  Senate  ;  and,  so  far  from  wishing  rotation,  he  thought  that 
if  the  Presideut  should  be  re-chosen  for  life,  so  much  the  bet 
ter."'  But  Adams  had  taken  no  pains  to  make  proselytes  to 
these  views.  And  his  disgust  with  kings  and  the  court  cir 
cles  of  Europe  differed  only  from  that  of  his  friend  Jeffer 
son's  in  being  more  the  result  of  wounded  vanity.  Weary  of 
his  fruitless  mission  at  London,  where  he  and  the  country  he 
represented  were  treated  with  freezing  disdain,  he  was  glad  to 
turn  his  back  upon  "a  species  of  slavery,"  as  he  termed  it, 
of  which  more  had  fallen  to  his  share  than  ever  before  to  any 
son  of  liberty.f 

In  one  respect  the  Federal  canvass  was  unfortunately  man 
aged,  and  an   indelicacy  in  dealing  with  so   high- 
strung  a  candidate  for  Vice-President  engendered 
party  dissensions  which  never  healed.     As  the  Constitution  at 
this  period  provided,  the  electors  in  the  several  States  were  to 


*  8  John  Adams's  Works,  1787.  f  Ib.,  1788. 


72  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  I. 

ballot  for  two  persons,  without  distinguishing  which  should  be 
President  and  which  Vice- President.  He  who  had  the  highest 
number  of  electoral  votes  in  the  aggregate,  if  a  majority,  be 
came  President,  while  the  second  would  be  Vice-President  in 
any  event.  The  Anti-Federalists  pushed  George  Clinton  for 
the  second  office  ;  and  needlessly  alarmed  lest  Washington 
should  otherwise  fail  of  the  highest  number,  the  Federal  elec 
tors  were  persuaded  at  the  last  moment  to  scatter  votes  which 
would  properly  have  gone  for  Adams.  While  Washington 
was  brought  in  for  President  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  69, 
which  he  would  probably  have  received  in  any  event,  John 
Adams,  as  Vice-President,  received  by  reason  of  this  ma 
noeuvre  only  34,  enough  to  elect  him,  but  only  a  minority. 
Adams,  who  did  not  by  consenting  to  run  for  the  second  place, 
rank  himself  inferior  in  merit  to  Washington  himself,  was 
deeply  irritated  by  what  he  thought  a  breach  of  faith  among 
his  supporters.  Hamilton,  the  father  of  the  inconsiderate 
scheme,  gained  only  an  enemy  by  it,  though  probably  intend 
ing  no  mischief.* 

This  very  first  trial  of  the  electoral  plan  showed  that  though 
eleven  to  thirteen  State  colleges  acted  independently  of  the 
people,  they  were  exposed  to  the  yet  greater  danger  of  secret 
cabals  among  party  leaders.  In  fact  the  machinery  of  this 
election,  with  all  its  simplicity  of  choice,  was  turned  by  a 
crank  over  which  a  small  knot  of  Federalists  presided.  In 
most  ratifying  States  the  selection  of  electors  devolved  upon 
the  legislatures.  But  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  gave  the 
choice  to  the  people  under  a  district  system.  The  malignant 
elements  in  the  legislature  of  New  York  so  operated  that  the 
State  cast  no  electoral  votes  at  all ;  but  the  violence  of  the 
Clinton  Anti-Federalism  sealed  its  doom,  and  already  the 
better  elements  were  combining  to  bring  this  State  into  its  true 
satellite  relation,  aided  by  a  resolve  of  the  Continental  Con 
gress,  which  provided  that  in  its  metropolis  the  Federal  gov 
ernment  should  first  be  located.  By  their  better  temper,  as 


*  "  I  have  seen  the  utmost  delicacy  used  towards  others,"  writes 
Adams  bitterly  to  a  friend,  "  but  my  feelings  have  never  been  regarded." 
8  John  Adams's  Works,  1789. 


1787-89.    CLOSE  OF  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  73 

well  as  the  superior  justice  of  their  cause,  the  Federalists  of 
the  Union  easily  ploughed  their  way  to  power. 

The  closing  labors  of  the  Continental  Congress  deserve  a 
brief  mention.  With  hardly  vitality  left  for  complet- 

17S7— 1"SQ 

ing  its  brief  routine  work,  the  Confederacy  bequeathed 
the  more  burdensome  concerns  to  its  successor.     Foreign  rela 
tions  had  made  little  progress.     Yielding,  however, 
to  loud   clamors  from  the  Southwest,  Congress  had 
stiffened  in  asserting  the  American  right  to  navigate  the  Mis 
sissippi,  though  negotiations  for  a  treaty  with  Spain  were  left 
to  await  the  pleasure  of  the  new  government. 

Internal  affairs,  except  for  the  dishonor  of  Federal  requisi 
tions  in  nearly  every  State,  had  brightened  since  the  Phila 
delphia  Convention  was  held.  The  new  State  of  Frankland 
fell  to  pieces  after  a  year's  organization.  Two  important  ter 
ritorial  suits  long  pending  before  Congress  were  settled  in 
1787 ;  one  between  Massachusetts  and  New  York,  touching 
their  respective  boundaries  east  of  the  Hudson,  and  certain 
Indian  claims;  the  other,  of  a  similar  nature,  between  Geor 
gia  and  South  Carolina.  But  by  far  the  most  momentous 
achievement  of  that  year  in  the  Continental  Congress  was 
the  passage  of  an  ordinance  for  securing  freedom  to  the  inhab 
itants  of  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  This  famous 

piece  of  legislation,  consummated  by  the  few  dele- 

u     u  •     j   •  •         i.  AT       vi       July 13- 

gates  who  had  remained  in  session  at  JNew  York, 

while  their  brethren  were  at  Independence  Hall,  stands  out 
as  the  last  really  brilliant  achievement  of  a  procrastinating, 
paralytic,  dying  assembly,  which  in  the  first  immortal  prime 
had  rung  its  clarion  across  the  seas.* 


See  State  papers ;  3  Hildreth ;  1  Madison's  Writings. 


VOL.  I. — 7 


74  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FIEST  ADMINISTRATION  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

SECTION  I. 

PERIOD   OF    FIRST    CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1789-MARCH  3,  1791. 

IN  New  York  city,  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  one  pleasant 
Thursday  in  April,  a  large  concourse  of  people,  as 
sembled  at  the  Battery  and  neighboring  wharves, 
were  gazing  with  strained  eyes  down  the  bay.  Holiday  tokens 
appeared  on  every  hand.  The  vessels  in  the  harbor,  promi 
nent  among  which  were  the  ship  North  Carolina  and  a  Span 
ish  packet,  the  Galveston,  lay  at  anchor,  their  colors  dancing 
in  the  breeze.  The  American  flag  was  displayed  from  the  fort, 
from  old  Federal  Hall  (where  now  stands  the  United  States 
custom-house),  and  from  various  State  and  municipal  build 
ings.  Stores  and  dwelling-houses  along  the  line  of  Wall  and 
Queen  streets  flaunted  streamers,  mottoes,  and  various  patri 
otic  emblems.  The  crowd  was  greatest  near  the  foot  of  Wall 
Street ;  here  humanity  surged,  and  scarcely  a  window  was  un- 
graced  by  feminine  faces,  sharing  the  general  expression  of 
happy  expectation.  The  stairs  at  the  landing-place  of  Mur 
ray's  wharf  had  been  carpeted,  and  the  rails  were  hung  with 
crimson.  Between  this  wharf  and  Wall  Street  was  a  coffee 
house,  at  which  waited  Governor  Clinton  and  his  military 
staff,  with  various  other  dignitaries.  Militia  companies,  dra 
goons,  and  grenadiers,  in  bright  uniform,  with  their  bands  of 
music,  rested  in  easy  negligence  along  the  sidewalks,  chatting 
with  the  multitude  and  waiting  the  order  of  attention.  Shin 
ing  carriages  were  drawn  up  next  the  wharf.  Mounted  aids 
clattered  back  and  forth,  bearing  messages. 


1789.  WASHINGTON   ENTERS   NEW    YORK.  75 

Presently  a  puff  of  smoke  came  from  the  Galveston,  fol 
lowed  by  a  loud  report.  •  At  the  same  instant,  with  her  yards 
all  manned,  she  ran  up  and  displayed  the  colors  of  all 
nations.  Thirteen  guns  mouthed  a  response  from  the  Bat 
tery.  And  now  could  be  seen  rounding  the  Spanish  packet 
seven  barges,  manned  by  crews  dressed  in  white,  the  handsom 
est  of  them  pulled  by  twelve  master  pilots,  a  thirteenth  serving 
as  coxswain.  Upon  this  barge,  expressly  built  for  the  occasion, 
all  eyes  turned,  seeking  to  distinguish  the  stateliest  figure  among 
a  distinguished  group  in  the  stern-sheets.  A  prolonged  shout 
went  up  as  the  water  party  made  their  way  to  Murray's 
wharf.  Oars  were  tossed  and  let  fall,  the  chief  barge  was 
made  fast  at  the  slip,  and  up  the  carpeted  staircase,  with  his 
escort,  mounted  a  tall,  elderly  man,  of  military  bearing, 
dressed  in  a  plain  suit,  with  blue  coat  and  buff  waistcoat  and 
breeches,  and  looking  healthy,  but  travel-worn.  Amid  the 
plaudits  of  the  dense  throng,  now  fully  excited,  Governor 
Clinton,  with  his  suite  and  the  civic  officers,  welcomed  him  at 
the  landing-place.  The  artillery  fired  another  salute.  The 
bells  broke  out  madly.  Washington  (for  it  was  he  who  ar 
rived  after  this  fashion)  entered  a  state  carriage,  followed  by 
the  governor.  Chancellor  Livingston,  the  adjutant-general 
and  city  recorder,  Jay,  Knox,  Osgood,  and  the  Congressional 
committee,  who  had  now  disembarked,  with  the  rest  of  the  party 
which  had  been  rowed  over  from  Elizabeth  town  Point,  took 
seats  in  other  carriages  provided  them ;  likewise  the  French 
and  Spanish  ambassadors.  A  body-guard  of  grenadiers  at 
tended  the  President-elect.  The  military  now  shouldered 
arms  and  took  up  the  line  of  march.  Citizens,  arm-in-arm, 
brought  up  the  rear.  In  this  manner  the  procession  wended 
its  way  up  Wall  and  through  Queen  streets,  to  the  house 
which  the  honored  guest  was  to  occupy.* 

Thus  propitiously  did  George  Washington  enter  New  York, 
our  temporary  capital,  as  the  first  President-elect  of  the  United 
States.  Receiving  after  the  electoral  count  his  official  notifica 
tion  by  the  hand  of  the  venerable  and  trusty  Charles  Thomson, 

*  See  New  York  Daily  Gazette ;  Boston  Centinel ;  Griswold's  Repub 
lican  Court.  This  house,  owned  by  Samuel  Osgood,  was  at  the  corner 
of  Cherry  Street  and  Franklin  Square. 


76  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

long  secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress,  he  had  set  out  from 
Mount  Vernon  a  week  before  to  enter  upon  his  new  official 
trust.  All  the  way  hither  he  had  been  publicly  honored, 
though  setting* out  as  a  plain  citizen,  in  his  private  carriage. 
Through  Philadelphia,  under  an  escort  of  city  troops,  he  rode 
upon  a  prancing  white  horse,  a  civic  crown  of  laurel  upon  his 
head.  A  surprise,  arranged  for  him  at  Trenton  by  its  fair 
townspeople,  touched  him  the  most  deeply  of  all  tributes. 
Here,  at  the  bridge  spanning  the  Assunpink  River,  which, 
twelve  years  before,  he  had  crossed  and  recrossed  in  those 
midnight  marches  which  turned  America's  fortunes  and  his 
own,  he  found  an  arch,  supported  on  thirteen  pillars  and 
twined  with  flowers,  laurel,  and  evergreen.  It  bore  the  in 
scription,  "The  Defender  of  the  Mothers  will  be  the  Pro 
tector  of  the  Daughters."  As  he  passed  beneath  it  young 
girls,  dressed  in  white,  sang  an  ode  of  welcome  and  strewed 
flowers  before  him.* 

Washington  now  remained  a  week  in  New  York  before  the 
arrangements  for  his  inauguration  were  concluded,  meantime 
receiving  the  hospitalities  of  the  city  and  its  chief  inhabitants. 
The  last  day  of  the  month  was  fixed  by  Congress  for 
the  public  ceremonies  of  the  first  Presidential  induc 
tion.  Though  the  day  opened  with  clouds,  the  sun  broke  out 
resplendent  before-soon.  Early  in  the  morning  crowds  of  peo 
ple  might  be  seen  pouring  into  town  over  King's  bridge,  some 
on  foot,  others  in  carriages ;  many,  besides,  having  already  ar 
rived  from  neighboring  States  to  witness  the  ceremonies. 
During  the  forenoon  prayers  were  offered  up  in  all  the 
churches.  At  twelve  o'clock  Washington  proceeded,  with  a 
military  escort,  from  his  house  to  Federal  Hall,  whose  situa 
tion  was  at  the  corner  of  Wall  and  Broad  streets.  Both 
houses  of  Congress  were  already  assembled  in  the  Senate 
chamber.  Vice-President  Adams,  who  had  entered  upon  his 
official  duties  shortly  before  Washington's  arrival  in  the 
city,  now  received  the  President-elect  and  conducted  him  to  a 
chair  at  the  upper  end  of  the  hall.  After  a  few  moments  of 


*  New  York  Gazette ;  Griswold's  Republican  Court.      Washington 
paid  his  grateful  thanks  to  this  "  white-robed  choir." 


1789.  WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION.  77 

silence,  when  all  was  ready,  the  assembled  body  and  their  in- 
vited  guests  went  out  upon  the  Senate  balcony,  the  appointed 
place  for  the  inaugural  ceremony.  This  balcony,  which 
fronted  on  Broad  Street,  was  most  appropriate,  facing,  as  it 
did,  a  large,  open  space,  and  being  long  and  ample,  with  Tus 
can  pillars  at  intervals,  and  cornices  decked  to  symbolize  the 
thirteen  States. 

The  scene  was  impressive.  Below  appeared  a  swaying 
crowd,  whose  upturned,  eager  faces  were  packed  in  solid  mass. 
Not  a  window  or  roof  in  the  neighborhood  was  unoccupied. 
A  loud  shout  went  up  as  Washington  came  to  the  front  of  the 
balcony ;  cocked  hats  waved  in  the  air,  handkerchiefs  flut 
tered.  Placing  his  hand  on  his  heart,  Washington  bowed 
again  and  again,  and  then  took  his  seat  in  an  arm-chair,  be 
tween  two  of  the  pillars,  near  a  small  table.  His  suit  was  a 
dark  brown,  of  American  manufacture  ;  at  his  side  he  wore  a 
dress  sword;  white  silk  stockings  and  shoes  decorated  with 
plain  silver  buckles  completed  his  attire.  His  hair,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  day,  was  powdered  and  gathered  in  a  bag  be 
hind,  and  his  head  remained  uncovered.  Though  erect  still 
in  figure,  with  a  face  which  flushed  when  he  spoke,  and  of 
that  indescribable  bearing,  kingly  yet  uukingly,  which  in 
spired  the  deepest  veneration  while  repelling  all  familiarity, 
Washington  showed  some  signs  of  approaching  age.  A  new 
set  of  false  teeth,  rudely  made,  gave  the  lower  part  of  his  face 
an  unusual  aspect.*  To  those  who  had  long  known  him  he 
seemed  softening  from  the  warrior  into  the  sage.  On  one  side 
of  him  stood  Chancellor  Livingston,  his  stately  figure  arrayed 
in  full  black  ;  on  the  other  side  the  square-set  Adams,  dressed 
more  showily  than  Washington,  but  likewise  in  clothes  of 
American  fabric.  Distinguished  men  in  and  out  of  Congress 
— among  the  latter  Hamilton,  Knox,  and  Steuben — sur 
rounded  this  conspicuous  group.  The  chancellor  came  for 
ward  and  gestured  to  the  crowd.  All  was  silent.  Washing 
ton  arose  once  more,  and  while  Otis,  the  newly  chosen  secre 
tary  of  the  Senate,  held  an  open  Bible  upon  a  rich  crimson 

*  See,  as  to  his  "hippopotamus"  and  other  false  teeth,  2  Magazine 
Am.  History,  30. 


78  HISTOEY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

cushion,  Chancellor  Livingston  administered  the  oath  of  office. 
The  words  were  solemnly  repeated  by  Washington,  who  said, 
audibly,  "  I  swear,"  and  then,  with  closed  eyes  and  in  a  whis 
pering  voice,  "so  help  me,  God !"  kissing  the  book  as  he  con 
cluded.  Chancellor  Livingston  now  turned  again  to  the 
crowd,  and,  waving  his  hand,  exclaimed  loudly,  "Long  live 
George  Washington,  President  of  the  United  States!"  Upon 
this  sign-al  a  long,  loud  huzza  rent  the  air,  and  cheer  followed 
cheer.  It  seemed  the  welling  up  from  thousands  of  hearts 
whose  emotions  could  no  longer  be  restrained.  A  flag  was 
run  up  on  a  staff  over  the  building,  and  the  artillery  guns  at 
the  Battery  thundered  the  earliest  of  Presidential  salutes. 

Once  more  returning  to  the  Senate-chamber,  the  balcony 
audience  took  their  seats  and  listened  to  the  inaugural  address, 
which  Washington  read  to  the  assembled  Congress  from  his 
manuscript.  "It  was  a  very  touching  scene,"  writes  a  mem 
ber  of  the  House,  "  and  quite  of  the  solemn  kind.  His  aspect, 
grave  almost  to  sadness;  his  modesty,  actually  shaking;  his 
voice  deep,  a  little  tremulous,  and  so  low  as  to  call  for  close 
attention ;  added  to  the  series  of  objects  presented  to  the  mind 
and  overwhelming  it,  produced  emotions  of  the  most  affecting 
kind  upon  the  members."* 

This  address  opened  by  an  allusion  (sincere,  doubtless,  as 
Washington's  private  letters  show)  to  the  anxiety  and  diffi 
dence  he  had  felt  and  the  conflict  of  his  own  emotions  be 
tween  a  desire  of  retirement  in  his  declining  years  on  the  one 
hand  and  his  disposition,  on  the  other,  to  heed  the  summons 
of  Congress  and  the  country.  All  he  dared  aver  was  his 
faithful  study  to  collect  his  duty  from  a  just  appreciation  of 
all  the  circumstances  which  might  affect  it ;  and  all  he  dared 
hope  was  that,  if  grateful  remembrance  of  the  past  or  an  af 
fectionate  sensibility  of  this  transcendent  proof  of  the  confi 
dence  of  his  fellow-citizens  had  led  him  into  error  in  accept 
ing  the  trust,  his  country  would  not  judge  him  unkindly. 
With  this  modest  preface  he  expressed  his  wish  to  receive,  as 
he  had  done  while  at  the  head  of  the  army,  a  compensation, 
which  should  merely  defray  his  official  expenses. 

*  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1789 


1789.  WASHINGTON'S  INAUGURATION.  79 

The  leading  theme  of  his  discourse  being  personal,  Wash 
ington  touched  but  lightly  upon  measures  of  practical  admin 
istration,  deferring  in  this  respect  to  the  wisdom  of  Congress. 
But  he  threw  out  suggestions  highly  favorable  to  amending 
the  Constitution  in  response  to  the  general  wish,  and  other 
wise  pursuing  such  a  course  of  popular  conciliation  as  might 
knit  the  people  of  all  the  States  into  a  harmonious  union. 
For  the  prosperity  of  the  new  government  he  invoked  once 
and  again  the  favor  of  the  Almighty  Being,  whose  wisdom 
had  thus  far  directed  us. 

After  the  conclusion  of  this  address  the  grave  assemblage 
proceeded  on  foot  to  St.  Paul's  chapel,  on  Broadway,  where 
Bishop  Provoost,  who  had  been  elected  one  of  the  chaplains  of 
Congress,  offered  prayers ;  after  which  Washington's  escort 
reconducted  him  to  his  house.  This  ended  the  ceremonials  of 
our  first  inauguration :  an  inauguration  to  be  distinguished 
from  all  later  ones  in  respect  of  place,  the  date  in  the  calen 
dar  year,  the  decidedly  religious  tone  given  to  the  exercises, 
and  a  minor  feature  or  two  which  reminded  some  of  a  foreign 
coronation.  Considering  the  man  and  the  occasion,  there  was 
nothing  out  of  tune  with  the  popular  expression.  There  were 
fireworks  and  illuminations  in  the  evening.  Multitudes  saun 
tered  down  Broadway  towards  Bowling  Green,  to  see  the  trans 
parencies  ;  one  displayed  Washington  as  Fortitude,  with  the 
two  houses  of  Congress,  as  Justice  and  Wisdom,  on  either  side  ; 
another,  in  front  of  the  theatre  in  John  Street,  represented 
Fame  descending  from  heaven  and  crowning  her  favorite 
son.* 

It  would  have  been  well  to  let  the  inaugural  exercises  ex 
pire  that  night  with  the  flame  of  the  last  rocket,  but  Congress 
would  not  so  permit.     Adopting  a  parliamentary  custom  still 
honored  in  several  of  the  States,  each  house  of  Congress  now 
proceeded  to  frame  a  formal  reply  to  the  inaugural  address, 
and  when  it  was  ready  the  President  was  waited  upon  by  the 
two  bodies  in  turn,  the  Speaker  presenting  the  ad 
dress  of  the  House  and  the  Vice-President  that  of 
the  Senate.     This  called  for  two  rejoinders  from  the  Presi- 

.    *  New  York  Gazette ;  4  Irving's  Washington  ;  Griswold's  Republican 
Court. 


80  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

dent.  The  House  ceremonial  took  place  in  a  room  adjoining 
the  Representatives'  chamber;  but  the  Senate  insisted  upon 
marching  in  a  body  to  the  President's  house,  setting  an  ex 
ample  which  the  House  followed  the  next  winter,  after  the 
opening  message  had  been  delivered.  And  thus  was  insti 
tuted  the  practice,  regularly  kept  up  in  the  two  houses  of 
Congress  until  Jefferson's  administration,  of  spending  the 
early  days  every  session  in  deliberating  upon  the  language  of 
a  composition  to  be  borne  through  the  streets  in  solemn  proces 
sion  and  presented  in  form  to  a  Chief  Magistrate  who,  per 
chance,  had  first  read  it  in  the  newspaper,  and  certainly  could 
have  little  response  to  make.  To  Madison,  if  not  to  other  mem 
bers  with  a  turn  for  composition,  it  sometimes  fell  to  help 
frame  both  message  and  response ;  and  the  country  has  lost 
nothing  in  dignity  by  abandoning  in  later  years  this  small 
culling  among  felicitous  phrases  to  make  up  a  Congressional 
nosegay  expressive  of  the  maximum  of  praise  with  the  mini 
mum  of  promise.* 

After  these  prolonged  ceremonies  had  ended,  Congress  at 
tacked  in  earnest  the  public  business,  of  which  it  had  already 
broken  the  crust.  Certainly  the  Aurora  of  this  new  epoch 

March  Provc(l  a  tardy  riser.  March  4th  was  ushered  in 
with  cannon  and  the  ringing  of  bells,  but  days 
passed  and  weeks  before  a  quorum  of  either  house  could  be 
obtained.  Federal  Hall,  a  building  not  without  architectural 
pretensions  for  the  times,  which  had  been  remodelled  and 
newly  fitted  up  by  private  subscription  for  the  use  of  Congress, 
still  echoed  to  the  sound  of  the  workman's  hammer.  For  for 
mality's  sake  the  old  Congress  still  continued  its  sessions,  so 
that,  as  one  of  the  mortified  expectants  wrote,  it,  seemed  doubt 
ful  whether  the  old  government  was  dead  or  the  new  one  alive. f 
This  lethargy,  which  might  have  been  thought  inherited,  had 
various  explanations.  Many  delegates,  of  course,  had  long 
distances  to  come;  the  season,  too,  always  unfavorable  for 
stages  and  coasting  vessels,  had  this  year  been  marked  by  a 

\ 

*  Annals  of  Congress  ;  Benton's  Abridgment ;  3  llives's  Madison. 
f  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1789. 


1789.      ORGANIZATION   OF   THE   FIRST   CONGRESS.  81 

long  stress  of  very  bad  weather ;  finally,  in  some  Congressional 
districts  the  elections  were  held  so  late  and  contested  so  closely 
that  the  membership  of  the  House  was  far  from  being  com 
plete.  At  length,  with  a  bare  quorum  of  thirty 

,  fr  11  •  APril  [- 

members,  the  House  proceeded  to  organize,  choos 
ing  Frederick  A.  Muhlenberg,  of  Pennsylvania,  speaker,  and 
John  Beckley,  of  Virginia,  clerk.     Nearly  a  week  later  the 
Senate  quorum  was  made  up,  and  for  the  first  time 

?.  •  /^  p  April  6. 

in  our  history  the  constitutional   Congress  of   two 

houses  held  session ;  more  than  a  month  later  than  the  date 

fixed  by  law. 

Passing  down  Wall  Street  from  the  corner  of  Broadway  on 
a  sunny  forenoon  in  May,  let  us  cross  the  open  space  at  the 
intersection  of  Broad  Street,  and,  glancing  first  at  the  prim 
spire  of  a  neighboring  church,  enter  the  plain  doorway  under 
neath  the  pillared  balcony  of  Federal  Hall.  This  is  a  long 
building,  surmounted  by  an  ugly  cupola,  formerly  the  City 
Hall.  Vamped  up,  rechristened,  shining  resplendent  with 
new  paint,  and  surmounted  by  the  eagle  and  insignia,  it  re 
minds  a  New  Yorker  of  one  of  his  own  city  troop,  lately  pa 
raded,  whose  familiar,  shoppish  face  tried  to  scowl  like  Alex 
ander  through  a  bright  and  showy  uniform.  The  stars  and 
stripes  fly  from  the  apex  of  the  roof,  just  above  the  balcony. 
Groups  of  grave,  substantial-looking  men  have  passed  in  be 
fore  us,  attired  in  the  fashionable  small-clothes,  with  leather 
breeches,  their  heads  adorned  with  wigs  and  three-cornered 
hats. 

Into  the  Senate  chamber  we  cannot  enter.  The  sessions  of 
this  body  are  held  behind  closed  doors,  and  will  so  con 
tinue  long  after  Federal  Hall  has  ceased  to  hold  an  Ameri 
can  Congress.  But  if  we  waited  outside  until  adjournment 
we  might  count,  among  some  twenty  who  come  down  the 
stairs,  four  signers  at  least  of  the  Declaration, — the  banker- 
statesman,  Robert  Morris,  George  Read,  Richard  Henry  Lee, 
who  introduced  the  resolves,  and  the  rich  Roman  Catholic, 
Charles  Carroll,  of  Carrollton,  who  was  the  last  survivor  of  all 
that  band.  We  should  also  see  Ellsworth,  of  Connecticut,  in 
later  life  an  envoy  and  the  chief  justice ;  Laugdon,  the  first 
president  pro  tempore ;  Strong,  of  Massachusetts ;  Paterson,  of 


82  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

New  Jersey,  and  Pierce  Butler,  of  Soutli  Carolina.  New 
York's  Senators,  not  yet  chosen,  will  be  General  Sehuyler  and 
Rui'us  King,  the  latter  recently  from  Massachusetts,  who,  as  a 
statesman  of  the  future,  will  on  the  whole  be  the  most  famous 
of  this  body.  For  the  long,  greyhound-like  Virginian,  who, 
after  various  ups  and  downs,  distanced  all  of  these  first  com 
peers  in  the  Senate,  and  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  the  most 
universally  popular  of  Presidents  after  the  first,  James  Mon 
roe,  will  not  belong  to  this  Congress  until  he  comes  at  a  later 
session  to  fill  a  vacancy  caused  by  death. 

To  the  House  gallery  the  doorkeeper  admits  us ;  and  we 
gaze  upon  the  legislative  branch  which  for  the  present  en 
grosses  all  the  popular  attention.  Looking  first  towards 
the  Speaker's  chair  we  recall  a  touching  episode  of  the  Revo 
lution.  Three  brothers,  born  in  Pennsylvania,  were  sent 
to  Germany  to  complete  their  education,  all  of  whom  were 
trained  to  the  Christian  ministry.  The  eldest,  Peter  Muhlen- 
berg,  took  orders  in  the  Church  of  England ;  the  next,  Fred 
erick,  was  ordained  to  the  Lutheran  ministry ;  and  each  re 
turned  to  America  to  assume  his  pastoral  charge.  The  war 
broke  out.  Peter  left  his  pulpit  to  raise  a  Virginia  regiment; 
declaring  in  his  farewell  sermon,  "There  is  a  time  for  all 
things — a  time  to  preach  and  a  time  to  fight;  and  now  is  the 
time  to  fight."  Frederick,  remaining  a  clergyman  a  few  years 
longer,  came  into  the  Continental  Congress ;  and  afterwards 
served  his  native  State,  presiding  over  the  Pennsylvania  Con 
vention  which  ratified  the  Constitution.  Both  brothers  are 
before  us,  civilians  and  public  men.  But  it  is  Frederick,  now 
a  portly,  prosperous  man  of  business,  who  takes  precedence ; 
he  is  Speaker  of  the  House. 

Madison,  now  on  his  feet,  is  the  administration  leader  in 
the  House ;  his  integrity,  talents,  and  long  experience,  besides 
his  intimate  relations  with  the  President,  early  gaining  him 
this  distinction.  His  bold  push  in  the  late  canvass  awakened 
something  like  enthusiasm  for  him,  though  Madison  is  by  no 
means  of  magnetic  temperament.  His  service  to  the  Federal 
cause  in  Virginia  cost  him  the  seat  in  the  Senate  he  would 
have  preferred,  and  Patrick  Henry,  besides  procuring  Anti- 
Federal  Senators,  tried  to  defeat  Madison  for  the  House  by  at- 


1789.  MEMBERS   OF   THE   FIRST   CONGRESS.  83 

tachiug  to  the  Orange  district  a  number  of  Anti-Federal  towns. 
The  popular  Monroe  was  then  run  against  Madison,  who,  how 
ever,  won  by  a  handsome  majority.* 

Among  others  experienced  in  council  here  assembled  are 
Gerry,  Roger  Williams,  and  George  Clymer,  all  signers 
of  the  Declaration  ;  though  the  first  alone  has  a  prominent 
political  future.  A  hollow-faced  man,  with  intellectual  face 
and  an  eye  of  unnatural  brightness,  is  Fisher  Ames,  of  the 
Boston  district,  the  most  brilliant  beyond  doubt  of  the  new 
men  in  the  House,  who  won  his  political  spurs  in  the  Massa 
chusetts  Convention  ;  one  of  the  most  graceful  writers  of  the 
day,  a  sound  lawyer,  and  in  his  highest  flights  an  orator  of 
astonishing  eloquence,  upon  him  disease  has  laid  a  blight 
ing  hand.  Socially  fastidious,  with  a  timid  distrust  of  the 
people,  which  a  robust  experience  might  have  overcome,  Ames 
will  settle  at  last  into  a  political  hypochondriac.  Another 
marked  debater  among  the  newer  members  is  William  Smith, 
of  the  Charleston  district,  South  Carolina;  a  rhetorician  how 
ever  more  than  a  legislator.  His  right  to  a  seat,  challenged 
on  the  ground  of  a  long  residence  in  England,  has  just  ter 
minated  favorably  by  a  vote  lacking  only  one  of  unanimity. 
Among  other  notables  are  Jonathan  Trumbull,  of  Connecti 
cut  ;  Theodore  Sedgwick,  of  Massachusetts ;  Elias  Boudinot, 
the  philanthropist,  of  New  Jersey ;  Thomas  Fitzsimons,  a 
Pennsylvania  merchant;  Abraham  Baldwin,  of  Georgia,  a 
useful  citizen,  of  Connecticut  antecedents;  Sumter,  of  South 
Carolina,  a  famous  soldier  but  modest  politician.  Scott,  of 
Western  Pennsylvania,  is  the  backwoods  member ;  and  the 
most  eccentric  is  the  mercurial  James  Jackson,  of  Georgia. 

Upon  the  whole  this  first  Congress  is  not  made  up  of  Titans 
or  demigods,  but  in  the  main  of  sound,  experienced,  saga 
cious  men,  who  well  know  how  to  dispatch  business  and  gain 
what  their  constituents  desire.  Even  now,  out  of  the  59  mem 
bers  who  compose  the  House,  at  least  a  dozen  more  were  as 
well  worth  naming  on  the  score  of  usefulness  as  most  of  those 

*  In  this  exciting  canvass  between  two  future  Presidents,  Madison 
and  Monroe  stumped  the  district  together,  holding  joint  discussions.  2 
Bives's  Madison. 


8i  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

we  have  singled  out.  The  times  have  been  unfavorable  to  the 
choice  of  decided  partisans,  and,  in  the  Senate  especially,  dig 
nified  mediocrity  rules.  Of  those  who  lately  marshalled  the 
forces,  Federal  or  Anti-Federal,  there  is  scarcely  one  to  repre 
sent  the  sharply  divided  States  except  Madison.  Hamilton 
is  not  here,  nor  Jay,  nor  Wilson,  nor  the  South  Carolina 
Pinckneys,  though  some  leaders  perhaps  have  declined  honors 
within  their  reach. 

Necessarily  the  Anti-Federalists  have  suffered  most  in  this 
ebb  of  party  spirit.  Samuel  Adams  was  distanced  in  the 
Boston  district  by  Ames,  and  finds  his  solace  under  Hancock 
in  the  ornamental  State  office  of  lieutenant-governor.  Gerry 
was  lucky  in  having  his  mouth  padlocked  at  the  Massachusetts 
Convention ;  and  having  a  Continental  repute  as  a  financier  and 
popularity  as  the  soldiers'  friend,  he  saved  himself  from  defeat 
by  a  close  vote  after  two  trials,  but  not  without  openly  recant 
ing  Anti-Federalism.  In  New  York  Clinton's  immense  influ 
ence  keeps  him  this  spring  in  the  governor's  chair,  but  his 
party  has  sunk  and  the  legislature  reverts  to  the  Federalists. 
Luther  Martin  and  Chase  have  left  politics.  In  Virginia 
Patrick  Henry's  influence  is  chiefly  obstructive.  The  Shays 
district  in  Massachusetts  furnishes  a  forlorn  specimen  of  New 
England  Anti-Federalism  ;  there  are  Anti-Federalist  senators 
from  Virginia,  and  in  the  House  a  few  of  the  same  stripe  from. 
New  York,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina.  But  scarcely  one 
of  these  is  prominent  or  a  pronounced  partisan.  In  spite  of  a 
tincture  of  State  prejudice,  the  general  tone  of  Congress  is 
unmistakably  for  giving  the  new  experiment  genuine  support 
and  a  fair  trial. 

The  manner  of  choosing  representatives  greatly  varied,  the 
discretion  of  each  State  determining  the  rule.  In  New  Hamp 
shire,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  Georgia  the  election 
was  upon  a  general  ticket ;  a  method  favorable  to  party  dis 
cipline  and  the  choice  of  eminent  men.  Other  States  pre 
ferred  the  district  system,  which  shades  public  sentiment  more 
closely  and  gratifies  the  village  leaders.  Connecticut  for 
many  years  pursued  a  unique  method  ;  voters  were  first  assem 
bled  to  nominate  a  list  of  candidates,  which  consisted  of  three 
times  the  number  of  representatives  to  be  chosen,  and  from 


1789.  METHODS   OF   ELECTION.  85 

this  list  at  the  regular  election  the  State  delegation  was  re 
turned.  Most  Southern  States  made  a  plurality  of  votes 
elect.  But  New  England  clung  long  to  the  majority  rule, 
and  this  caused  vexatious  repetitions  where  the  contest  for  a 
seat  in  Congress  was  a  close  one ;  State  offices,  too,  were  ex 
posed  to  the  intrigues  of  a  legislative  assembly,  empowered  to 
select  among  the  candidates  where  there  had  been  no  choice 
by  the  people.* 

After  performing  hastily  their  constitutional  functions  with 
regard  to  the  electoral  count,  on  the  late  day  the 

i  ^     n  II  APril  G- 

benate  quorum  was  made  up  and  Congress  had  a 

legal  existence, — functions  merely  routine  on  this  occasion, 

since  the  electoral  results  were  so  well  known,~j~ — and  arraug- 

*  The  gradual  supersedure  of  the  majority  rule  in  the  United  States 
by  the  plan  of  permitting  a  plurality  of  votes  to  determine  once  and  for 
all  the  popular  choice  is  the  result  in  many  States  of  a  painful  experi 
ence.  A  trace  of  the  old  dangerous  method  remains,  however,  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  still  gives  the  choice  of  Presi 
dent  after  a  peculiar  arrangement  to  the  House  of  Representatives — 
and  that  a  House  long  before  elected  and  quite  likely  to  be  out  of  ac 
cord  with  the  sentiment  of  the  country — in  case  no  candidate  receives  a 
majority  of  the  electoral  votes.  Should  our  Constitution  ever  be 
amended  in  respect  of  Presidential  elections,  plurality  of  choice, 
whether  by  electors  or  the  people,  appears  a  desirable  change.  For, 
as  State  experience  well  demonstrates,  there  is  economy,  and  liberty 
stands  more  securely,  if  the  candidate  conies  in  who  stands  highest  by 
the  primary  vote  than  where  any  secondary  body  is  permitted  to  exer 
cise  discretion  afterwards. 

f  Each  House  at  this  electoral  count,  as  ever  afterwards,  appointed 
its  own  tellers ;  but  it  was  not  surprising  if,  as  to  the  etiquette  in  some 
other  respects,  the  Representatives  yielded  more  to  the  superior  pre 
tensions  of  the  Senate'than  they  ever  did  again  when  arrangements 
were  deliberately  made  for  tho  ceremony. 

The  electoral  vote  stood  as  follows  :  George  Washington,  of.  Virginia, 
had  09  votes,  or  all  of  those  cast,  and  consequently  was  declared  Presi 
dent.  As  the  second  candidate,  John  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  received 
31  votes,  or  the  highest  number,  and  as  a  majority  was  requisite  for  the 
Presidency  alone  he  was  declared  Vice-Presidcnt.  John  Adams  re 
ceived  the  entire  vote  of  New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts,  5  out  of  7 
in  Connecticut,  1  out  of  6  in  New  Jersey,  8  out  of  10  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  5  out  of  10  in  Virginia.  Connecticut  threw  away  2  votes  on  Sam- 


86  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

ing  that  Washington  and  Adams  should  be  promptly  notified 
of  their  elevation  to  offices  which  it  was  virtual  anarchy  to 
leave  longer  unfilled,  the  two  Houses  entered  upon  the  impor 
tant  business  of  the  session.  In  the  House  the  first  tariff 
measure  was  well  advanced  in  discussion  when  interrupted  by 
the  inaugural  ceremonies. 

How  admirably  this  Congress  was  adapted  for  practical 
work  the  highly  important  legislation  of  the  first  session  well 
evinced.  The  chief  object  was  to  supply  the  machinery  need 
ful  for  operating  the  new  constitutional  government,  and  be 
tween  the  1st  of  June  and  the  last  of  September  27  acts  and 
5  joint  resolutions  were  approved,  many  of  which  contained 
provisions  now  permanently  established  in  our  Federal  system. 
Let  us  examine  this  legislation  somewhat  in  detail,  summar 
izing  briefly  the  course  of  debate. 

(1.)  As  to  Impost  and  Navigation. — When  Congress  assem 
bled  the  Federal  treasury  was  empty.  Upon  the  new  House 
devolved  the  constitutional  right  and  duty  of  origi 
nating  revenue  bills;  and  here,  without  waiting  for 
a  President  to  be  inducted,  Madison  brought  forward  a  resolve 
upon  which  arose  the  first  of  American  tariff  debates. 

Two  great  sources  for  supplying  the  treasury  were  now  avail 
able:  customs  duties  and  excise,  the  latter  derivable  from 
subdivided  goods  and  merchandise,  the  former  from  goods 
and  merchandise  in  the  gross  or  as  cargoes.  Espionage  and  a 
multiplicity  of  officials,  not  to  speak  of  State  rights  and  jeal 
ousies,  were  objections  to  a  Federal  excise ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  levy  of  customs  duties  made  part  of  that  commercial 
system  which  the  people  of  the  States  had  now  exclusively 
confided  to  the  Union,  involving  besides  neither  a  burdensome, 

uel  Iluntington  of  that  State.  5  of  New  Jersey's  votes,  the  3  votes  of 
Delaware,  and  1  Virginia  vote  were  given  to  John  Jay.  2  of  Pennsyl 
vania's  votes  and  1  vote  each  from  Virginia  and  South  Carolina  went 
to  John  Hancock.  Maryland's  0  votes  were  cast  for  Hobert  II.  Harri 
son  of  that  State.  Virginia  gave  the  Anti-Federal  George  Clinton  3 
votes.  South  Carolina  honored  John  Ilutledge  of  that  State  by  6  votes. 
Georgia's  5  votes  were  scattered  among  four  unimportant  candidates. 
New  York  cast  no  electoral  votes  for  President  or  Vicc-President. 


1789.  REVENUE   MEASURES.  87 

unpopular,  nor  very  costly  method  of  collection.  No  duties 
could,  as  the  Constitution  provided,  be  laid  Upon  exports  ;  but 
from  import  duties  alone  a  handsome  revenue  might  constantly 
accrue. 

Madison's  revenue  plan  contemplated  therefore  a  customs 
revenue.  Its  basis  was  the  Continental  proposition  of  1783, 
which  all  but  one  State  had  lately  sanctioned.  Upon  enumer 
ated  articles,  chiefly  of  the  sort  styled  luxuries,  such  as  wines, 
spirits,  tea,  coffee,  molasses,  and  sugar,  a  specific  duty  was  to 
bo  set ;  while  all  other  imports  should  pay  an  ad  valorem  tax. 
Introducing  his  resolve  in  committee  of  the  whole,  Madison 
reminded  his  fellow-members  of  the  impotency  of  the  Congress 
now  superseded,  and  urged  that  the  Union,  in  its  first  act,  re 
vive  those  principles  of  honor  and  honesty  that  had  too  long 
lain  dormant.  To  meet  the  notorious  deficiencies  in  the  treas 
ury  there  should,  he  argued,  be  a  national  revenue ;  but  this 
under  a  system  which,  securing  the  object  of  revenue,  would 
not  prove  oppressive  to  constituents. 

These  general  sentiments  found  manifest  favor ;  nor  did  the 
House  disincline  to  base  its  first  revenue  act  upon  the  propo 
sition  of  1783,  But  in  the  absence  of  anything  like  full  and 
trustworthy  statistics,  some  preferred  a  uniform  ad  valorem  to 
begin  with,  while  all  now  inclined  to  regard  the  present  meas 
ure  as  merely  temporary.  But  as  the  debate  progressed  it 
appeared  that  representatives  were  fast  learning  the  wishes 
of  constituents,  and  th'us  informed  they  saw  quickly  how  to 
press  them.  The  first  House  debates  on  a  Federal  tariff 
served  to  bring  out  fairly  most  of  the  arguments  that  have 
ever  done  service  since.  For  the  real  difficulty  in  securing  a 
good  revenue  act  has  always  lain  less  in  determining  broad 
principles,  than  in  applying  those  principles  to  existing  condi 
tions  of  trade,  so  as  to  favor  the  whole  nation  against  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  not  yield  too  much  to  local  interests. 

•Revenue  was  the  main  object,  but  the  act  as  finally  passed 
had  mild  protective  features.  In  the  course  of  discussion  the 
growing  industries  of  the  several  States  passed  in  lair  review. 
Though  the  language  of  members  was  temperate  for  the  most 
part,  and  conciliating,  agricultural  and  manufacturing  inter 
ests  clashed  considerably.  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania, 


88  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

most  of  all,  whose  citizens  made  various  small  wares,  wished 
protective  duties  for  them,  and  their  able  representatives 
managed  to  get  the  bill  shaped  accordingly.  None  of  the 
tariff  rates  were  placed  immoderately  high  ;  yet  the  theoretical 
right  of  protecting  home  industries  by  Federal  legislation,  so 
far  from  being  doubted,  found  express  recognition  in  the 
language  of  the  preamble.* 

The  tax  on  distilled  spirits  gave  rise  to  a  lively  debate. 
Distillers  in  the  Boston  and  Salem  districts  wanted  a  high  duty 
on  Jamaica  rum,  but  a  low  one  on  the  imported  molasses 
which  they  used  in  the  native  manufacture.  But  the  friends 
of  temperance  in  Congress  would  have  discouraged  rum-selling 
altogether;  and  these  found  singular  allies  from  frontier  dis 
tricts,  whose  constituents  were  engaged  in  making  whiskey  and 
peach  brandy,  products  which  only  an  excise  act  could  seri 
ously  injuie.  On  this  prosaic  theme  Ames  launched  out  in 
his  maiden  speech  ;  and  with  his  Salern  colleague,  Goodhue, 
carried  the  point  for  rum  distillers  on  the  merits  of  molasses 
as  a  staple  diet,  needful  to  the  poor,  of  which  Massachusetts 
imported  more  than  all  the  other  States  together.  The  partial 
success  thus  gained  in  the  House  was  enlarged  through  the 
operation  of  Senate  amendments.  But  by  their  absence  the  day 
the  Vice-President  was  to  arrive  in  town  the  members  from 
Eastern  Massachusetts  lost  the  opportunity  of  getting  distilled 
rum  placed  on  the  list  of  drawbacks.  On  imported  spirits 
generally  and  wines — the  latter  being"  altogether  foreign  at 
this  period — the  House  was  disposed  to  lay  higher  duties  than 
the  Senate.  Malt  and  hops  of  native  growth  and  the  product 
of  American  breweries  found  common  favor. 

As  for  manufactures  of  iron,  members  from  Eastern  Penn 
sylvania  and  New  England  joined  for  mutual  advantage. 
For  nails,  at  this  time  a  household  manufacture  in  New  Eng 
land,  engaging  farmers'  families  through  the  long  winter  even 
ings,  a  protective  duty  was  obtained ;  steel,  too,  already  a 
rising  industry  in  Pennsylvania,  received  favoring  attention  ; 
notwithstanding  agricultural  members  complained  that  high 

*  Act  July  4th,  1789,  c.  2 ;  1  U.  S.  Statutes  at  Large ;  Annals  of  Con 
gress  ;  Benton's  Abridgment. 


1789.  REVENUE   MEASURES.  89 

duties  on  such  articles  placed  a  burden  upon  farmers  and 
house-builders.  Paper,  leather  manufactures,  wool  and  cot 
ton  cards,  all  got  scaled  on  the  list  so  as  to  give  America  the 
preference;  this  in  compliance  with  petitions  for  one  industry 
and  another  which  kept  coming  in.  As  Madison's  original 
list  of  specific  articles  rapidly  increased  by  proposed  additions, 
most  of  which  he  readily  accepted,  the  agricultural  members 
of  the  House  grew  uneasy.  A  proposition  to  tax  imported 
salt  at  last  brought  them  to  their  feet,  protesting  that  a  neces 
sary  of  life  for  people  and  cattle  ought  not  to  be  taxed.  But 
Lawrence,  of  New  York  and  a  region  deeply  interested  in 
salt  works,  reminded  the  House  that  such  a  tax  must  needs 
bear  upon  rich  as  well  as  poor,  and  that  if  dwellers  in  the 
back  country  find  it  peculiarly  oppressive,  yet  on  the  other 
hand  they  contribute  little  to  the  Federal  revenue  in  other 
respects.  The  salt  protectionists  carried  their  point,  but  the 
policy  of  such  a  tax  gave  rise  to  many  angry  debates  on  the 
floor  of  Congress  in  after  years. 

A  discussion  on  cordage  elicited  the  inquiry,  Why -not  tax 
imported  hemp  as  well?  The  new  idea  of  protecting  Ameri 
can  staples  struck  those  favorably  who  had  found  the  manu 
facturers  carrying  everything,  and  at  length  a  Senate  amend 
ment  classed  hemp  and  cotton  together  as  two  products  of  our 
soil  not  yet  firmly  established,  but  well  worth  fostering.  The 
tariff  bill,  as  enacted,  placed,  in  fact,  a  specific  duty  on  all 
hemp  and  cotton  imported  after  December  1st,  1790.  Cotton, 
whose  profitable  culture,  under  the  stimulus  of  mechanical  in 
ventions,  has  prodigiously  influenced  American  politics,  was 
now  only  beginning  to  attract  attention.  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  exported  it  in  trifling  quantities;  but,  though  raised 
experimentally  at  the  South  almost  as  early  as  the  Mayflower 
reached  Cape  Cod,  and  found  to  grow  better  on  American  soil 
than  in  the  Asiatic  countries  which  then  supplied  the  world, 
it  had  hitherto  been  reckoned  lightly  as  a  product  of  the 
Southern  soil  in  comparison  with  tobacco,  rice,  or  even  indigo. 
As  for  hemp  culture,  extravagant  hopes  were  just  now  enter 
tained,  for  New  England  was  very  ambitious  of  commerce 
and  ship-building;  yet  to  this  day  American  hemp  has  never 
risen  to  the  rank  of  a  staple.  Coal  was  placed  in  the  list  of 

VOL.  I.— 8 


90  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

enumerated  articles,  and  at  the  instance  of  Bland,  one  of  the 
Virginia  delegates;  for  at  this  time  Virginia  was  the  coal-pro 
ducing  State;  and  the  bituminous  yield  of  her  mines  was  be 
lieved  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the  whole  country. 
s  Our  first  tariff  act,  in  fine,  accommodated  as  far  as  possible 
the  industries  of  contending  sections.  Members  of  this  Con 
gress,  like  many  of  their  successors,  pressed  favorite  claims 
with  so  little  tenacity  as  to  abstract  principle  that  the  same 
man  who  had  argued  for  high  duties  on  what  his  constituency 
was  ambitious  of  supplying  might  have  been  seen  voting  for 
low  duties  on  an  article  which  that  same  constituency  would 
have  to  purchase.  No  one  advocated  free  trade  ;  nor  could  a 
bill  which,  with  the  exception  of  one  undeniable  luxury  for 
the  rich,  ranged  its  ad  valorems  from  five  to  twelve  and  one- 
half  per  cent.,  and  rated  specific  duties  in  a  like  moderate  pro 
portion,  be  styled  a  high  tariff  measure.  Much  needless  time 
was  wasted  in  discussing  how  long  a  tariff  act  ought  to  remain, 
in  force;  for  though,  after  dwelling  forcibly  upon  the  disad 
vantages  both  of  brief  and  extensive  terms  in  such  legislation, 
Congress  deliberately  fixed  upon  a  period  of  something  like 
seven  years,  scarcely  twelve  months  elapsed  before  there  was 
a  new  statute,  which  largely  modified  the  original  scale, 
mainly  with  the  view  of  obtaining  a  more  productive  revenue.* 
Tonnage,  a  branch  of  revenue  intimately  connected  with 
customs  duties,  was  the  subject  of  a  separate  act.  The  taxa 
tion  of  sailing  vessels  by  their  capacity  was  a  government  re 
source  long  familiar  to  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  of 
which  Congress  was  not  indisposed  to  avail  itself,  nor,  in 
doing  so,  to  neglect  making  such  a  sliding  scale  of  rates  as 
should  give  the  preference  to  American  bottoms.  A  fair  dis 
crimination  was  made  as  between  native  and  foreign  ships; 
and  for  the  encouragement  of  a  few  enterprising  merchants  of 
Salem,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia,  who  had  embarked  in 
the  East  India  and  China  trade,  the  tariff  act  made,  likewise, 
a  marked  distinction  in  favor  of  tea  importation  by  vessels 
built  or  owned  in  the  United  States. 

*  Act  July  4th,  1789,  c.  2 ;   Annals  of  Congress ;   Act  August  10th, 
1790,  c.  39. 


1789.  TONNAGE   AXD   DISCRIMINATION.  91 


when  it  came  to  discriminating  among  foreign  nations, 
in  favor  of  those  who  were  in  treaty  alliance  with  the  United 
States,  an  angry  division  appeared.  Whether  it  were  through 
jealousy  or  disdain,  or  to  take  revenge  upon  her  successful  reb 
els,  Great  Britain  still  pursued  her  exasperating  policy.  France, 
Prussia,  Sweden,  and  Holland,  on  the  other  hand,  had  treaties 
with  the  United  States  on  the  basis  of  commercial  reciprocity. 
Wishing  to  put  into  national  practice  a  rule  which  Virginia, 
Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  had  separately  asserted  in  the 
nerveless  days  of  the  Confederacy,  Madison  now  urged  that 
the  new  government  start  by  giving  allied  nations  the  prefer 
ence.  In  favor  of  such  a  course  it  was  argued  that  this  was 
simply  enforcing  regulations  we  had  a  right  to  make;  that 
public  sentiment  and  the  ties  of  gratitude  sanctioned  discrimi 
nation  ;  that  no  nation  being  singled  out  by  name,  none  had 
just  cause  of  offence;  that  by  such  a  policy  we  should 
strengthen  the  ties  already  formed,  and  they  who  had  hitherto 
held  back  might  recognize  the  advantage  of  coming  to  terms 
and  seeking  our  friendship.  These  views,  which  the  Pennsylvania 
representatives  and  Baldwin  forcibly  seconded,  were  strongly 
opposed  from  the  New  England  quarter,  New  York,  and 
Charleston.  Such  a  policy,  A  rues,  Lawrence,  and  Smith  as 
serted,  was  a  direct  affront  to  Great  Britain,  and  sure  to  irri 
tate  without  injuring  her.  Great  Britain  had  not  so  discrimi 
nated  against  us,  but  pursued  her  own  course  as  to  the/world  ; 
she  was  too  powerful  a  nation  for  the  United  States  to  provoke 
with  impunity  ;  nor  were  we  bound  by  gratitude  to  favor  any 
other  nation  to  this  extent.  The  House  inclining,  however,  to 
Madison's  experiment,  whatever  the  consequences,  applied  j 
treaty  discrimination  to  the  tonnage  by  a  sweeping  majority.; 
But  those  colleagues  who  voiced  the  somewhat  timorous  senti 
ment  of  shipping  merchants,  themselves  British  in  inclination, 
and  aided  by  a  powerful  British  lobby,  whose  headquarters  were 
New  York  city,  now  addressed  their  efforts  to  the  secret  branch 
of  Congress  as  less  susceptible  to  popular  impressions.  When 
the  customs  and  tonnage  bills  came  back  from  the  Senate 
with  amendments,  it  appeared  that  the  treaty  discrimination 
feature  had  been  struck  out.  The  House  refused  indignantly 
to  pass  the  bills  in  this  shorn  condition  ;  committees  of  confer- 


92  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

ence  were  appointed ;  but  the  bills  finally  passed  as  thus 
amended  on  an  understanding  that  the  Senate  would  take  up 
tonnage  discrimination  as  a  separate  measure.  Washington 
signed  the  first  tonnage  bill  in  this  expectation.  Nothing 
was  done  in  the  Senate,  however,  beyond  the  appointment  of 
a  smothering  committee.  At  the  next  session,  when 
the  new  tonnage  bill  was  remodelled,  Madison  car 
ried  treaty  discrimination  through  the  House ;  but  once  again 
the  Senate  thwarted  him.  By  this  time  the  foreign  aspect 
was  changing,  and  stirring  the  British  lion  had  become  a 
sport  more  distasteful  to  the  administration.*  Discrimina 
tion,  though  not  in  itself  a  fair  test  of  foreign  predilections, 
demonstrated  pretty  fairly  the  existence  of  a  powerful  British 
faction  among  us  and  the  seat  of  its  strength. 

Other  acts  which  passed  at  this  first  session  provided  for 
methods  of  collection,  light-houses,  and  the  regulation  of  the 
foreign  and  coasting  trade.  The  sea-coast  was  divided  into 
suitable  collection  districts,  having  ports  of  entry  which 
should  likewise  serve  as  ports  of  delivery ;  at  each  port  was  to 
be  a  custom-house,  in  charge  of  United  States  officials;  duties 
were  receivable  in  gold  and  silver  coin  only,  though  in  the 
chaos  of  monetary  affairs  a  temporary  standard  was  fixed  at 
which  foreign  coins  should  be  accepted ;  one-half  of  all  fines, 
forfeitures,  and  penalties  recovered  was  to  go  to  the  govern 
ment,  the  other  moiety  to  officers  and  informers  as  a  reward ; 
and  the  chief  local  officers  of  customs  were  to  be  a  collector, 
naval  officer,  and  surveyor.  In  these  and  other  leading  re 
spects  our  customs  revenue  system  received  a  permanent  im 
pression  at  the  first  session  of  Congress,  the  collection  act 
itself  being,  however,  superseded  the  next  year  by  one  framed 
upon  Treasury  recommendations.  This  first  foreign  and  coast 
ing  trade  act,  too,  required  vessels  of  the  one  class  to  register, 
and  of  the  other  to  procure  clearauces.f 

*  See  Annals  of  Congress,  1789,  1790;  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  45; 
Act  July  20th,  1789,  c.  3.  Washington,  in  1789,  favored  treaty  discrim 
ination.  He  would  not  have  vetoed  the  tonnage  bill,  however,  but  suf 
fered  it  at  the  most  to  become  a  law  without  his  signature.  3  Rives's  Mad 
ison,  27  ;  9  Washington's  Writings,  March,  1790. 

f  Acts  July  31st,  1789,  c.  5;  August  7th,  1789,  c.  9;  September  1st, 
1789,  c.  11. 


1789.  EXECUTIVE   DEPARTMENTS.  93 

In  fundamental  principle  our  impost  and  navigation  laws 
have  undergone  surprisingly  little  change  since  the  first 
Congress  legislated  on  the  subject;  less,  perhaps,  than  might 
be  desirable. 

(2.)  The  Executive  Departments. — The  new  Constitution  had 
wisely  confided  methods  of  organization  to  the  liberal  discre 
tion  of  Congress,  with  little  more  than  a  bare  recognition  that 
departments  were  to  exist.  A  rough  outline  of  administra 
tive  division  aided  Congress  in  its  first  legislation  ;  for,  as  to 
certain  bureaus  in  which  a  sub-delegated  authority  from  the 
Continental  Congress  had  been  reposed,  papers  were  filed  and 
the  details  of  official  correspondence  attended  to.  There  was 
a  bureau  of  foreign  affairs  and  a  bureau  of  war,  each  with  its 
secretary;  moreover,  a  treasury  board,  under  commissioners. 
To  these  might  be  added  that  useful  functionary  who  alone 
had  survived  royalty,  the  postmaster-general.  To  reorganize 
so  as  to  lift  bureaus  to  the  rank  of  distinct  executive  depart 
ments  and  to  equip  them  thoroughly  for  their  constitutional 
functions  was  now  the  chief  problem. 

Here,  again,  the  House  took  the  initiative.  Boudiuot,  a 
man  of  much  routine  experience  under  the  old  Con 
federacy,  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  subject,  by 
moving  for  the  establishment  of  a  treasury  department  to 
manage  the  finances  of  the  United  States.  But  the  sense  of 
the  House  indicating  a  desire  to  first  determine  how  many 
departments  in  all  should  be  established,  that  issue  took  pre 
cedence.  It  was  determined  after  debate  that  there  should 
be  three:  those  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Treasury,  and  War,  each 
with  a  secretary  at  the  head ;  and  committees  were  directed 
to  bring  in  bills  accordingly.  Vining,  of  Delaware,  proposed 
adding  a  fourth  for  the  regulation  of  interior  affairs,  to  be 
styled  the  Home  Department ;  but  this  was  thought  inexpe 
dient,  and  some  sixty  years  elapsed  before  the  interior  busi 
ness  crept  up  to  a  point  that  justified  erecting  such  a  depart 
ment. 

State  jealousy  operated  against  both  the  multiplication  of 
Federal  offices,  and  the  tendency  to  concentrate  influence  in 
single  individuals.  The  substitution  of  a  secretary  for  the 
board  which  had  recently  managed  the  Continental  finances 


94  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

was  not  carried  without  eliciting  a  sharp  dispute  as  to  which 
had  proved  the  better  plan  under  the  old  practice.* 

These  Executive  Departments  were  constituted  under  sepa 
rate  acts.  The  act  which  established  that  of  Foreign  Affairs 
was  the  first  to  receive  the  President's  signature ;  but  the  dis 
cussion  over  Viniug's  plan  having  meanwhile  impressed  Con 
gress  with  the  conviction  that  this  department  ought  to  have 
a  broader  scope,  a  new  bill  was  passed  towards  the  close  of  the 
session,  substituting  what  was  termed  the  Department  of  State, 
and  giving  to  the  secretary,  besides  the  supervision  of  diplo 
matic  affairs,  duties  under  the  new  Constitution  more  purely 
domestic,  such  as  keeping  the  great  seal,  and  preserving  and 
promulgating  the  laws  of  each  session. f  Next  followed  the 
Department  of  War,  whose  chief  officer  was  to  take  the  books 
and  papers  of  the  Continental  secretary  and  to  perform  cor 
responding  functions.  No  vessel  of  the  little  Federal  navy 
now  remained,  and  for  nine  years  the  nominal  management 
of  warlike  operations,  whether  by  sea  or  land,  devolved  upon 
the  Secretary  of  War,  as  the  style  of  that  office  literally  im 
ported.  J 

To  reorganize  the  third  department,  that  of  the  Treasury, 
was  by  far  the  most  difficult  task.  Besides  the  preliminary 
inquiry  already  adverted  to,  it  remained  to  provide  not  only 
for  transferring  the  management  of  the  Continental  finances 
and  Eevolutionary  debt,  at  present  in  great  confusion,  but 
likewise  for  superadding  new  and  momentous  functions,  like 
those  of  disbursing,  of  collecting  and  applying  the  revenue, 
and  of  superintending  the  affairs  of  commerce.  Upon  the  act 
as  framed  and  passed  after  much  deliberation,  the  Treasury 
Department  has  based  its  operations  ever  since.  The  dread 
of  the  one-man  power  at  the  nation's  purse-strings  was  shown, 
not  indeed  in  diffusing  executive  responsibility  and  marring  the 
symmetry  of  the  new  department  system,  but  by  creating  subor 
dinate  checks  and  counter-checks  to  the  secretary's  abuse  of 
power.  There  was  an  auditor  to  examine  and  transmit  the 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  May  19th-21st,  July  23d,  1789. 
f  Acts  of  July  27th,  1789J  c.  4;  September  15th,  1789,  c.  14;  U.  S. 
Statutes  at  Large. 

J  Act  August  7th,  1789,  c.  7. 


1789.  EXECUTIVE   DEPARTMENTS.  95 

public  accounts  and  vouchers,  a  comptroller  to  review  and 
pass  upon  them,  a  treasurer,  furnishing  security,  to  be  the 
actual  custodian  and  disburser  of  the  public  moneys,  and  a 
register  who  should  keep  the  accounts  and  record  all  warrants. 
An  assistant  secretary  was  added,  whom  alone  among  these 
high  officials  of  the  department  the  secretary  personally  ap 
pointed.  The  official  duties  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
were,  subject  to  these  restraints,  to  have  the  general  manage 
ment  of  his  department  concerns,  but  more  particularly  to 
digest  and  prepare  plans  of  revenue  and  public  credit,  draw 
up  estimates,  supervise  the  collection  of  taxes,  decide  upon 
the  forms  of  keeping  accounts,  and  make  his  regular  reports 
to  Congress.  By  way  of  outer  bulwarjt  to  the  Treasury,  Con 
gress  made  it  a  penal  offence  for  any  one  appointed  to  this 
department  to  be  concerned  in  trade  or  commerce,  own  ves 
sels,  purchase  public  property,  or  transact  other  business. 
All  this  cautious  but  not  unwholesome  regulation  has  borne 
fruit.  The  Treasury  of  the  United  States  has  for  nearly  a 
century  been  administered  without  one  serious  defalcation, 
though  disbursing  over  seven  billions  of  the  public  money. 
Its  vast  concerns  have  generally  been  handled  with  scrupu 
lous  fidelity  and  skill,  notwithstanding  the  evils  entailed  by  a 
complicated  system  of  bookkeeping.  And  yet  no  later  Mor 
ris,  no  prosperous  merchant  or  financier,  no  official  wealthy 
enough  to  help  government  through  a  strait  by  his  private 
credit  has  presided  there ;  but  its  responsible  management  has 
devolved  almost  continuously  upon  men  of  small  incomes, 
bred  either  to  politics  or  the  legal  profession.* 

For  the  present  the  post-office  was  maintained  upon  its  old 
footing.  It  was  long  before  the  Postmaster-General  ranked 
with  secretaries  as  a  constitutional  adviser;  and  then  chiefly 
in  recognition  of  an  immense  official  patronage  which  political 
parties  had  come  to  look  upon  as  their  own ;  for  the  govern 
ment  postal  business,  however  extensive,  has  always  been  of 
a  strictly  routine  character.")" 

In  connection  with  the  Executive  Departments  an  animated 

*  Act  September  2d,  1789,  c.  12. 
f  Act  September  22d,  1789,  c.  16. 


96  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

controversy  arose  in  Congress  over  the  constitutional  right  of 
removing  subordinate  officers.  The  final  decision  of  both 
Houses  favored  the  independence  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  in 
this  respect ;  but  it  took  the  casting  vote  of  the  Vice-President, 
a  friend  of  executive  rights,  to  bring  the  Senate  to  yield  this 
point.  The  department  bills  were  framed  accordingly,  and  that 
broad  principle  remained  unshaken  for  three-quarters  of  a 
century,  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate  being  required  only  in 
appointments.* 

(3.)  The  Judiciary. — This  portion  of  the  session's  work 
occasioned  little  or  no  dispute.  The  bill  organizing  for  the 
first  time  a  Federal  judiciary  originated  in  the  Senate  and 
was  shaped  to  a  considerable  extent  by  the  dispassionate  Ells 
worth.  As  finally  approved,  the  act  provided  for  a  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  to  consist  of  a  chief  justice  and 
five  associates.  The  lesser  jurisdiction  was  parcelled  in  the 
first  instance  among  district  judges,  the  country  being  divided 
up  into  Federal  districts,  whose  limits  coincided  so  far  as 
might  be  with  those  of  the  several  States;  these  districts  were 
grouped  into  circuits,  consisting  for  the  present  of  three,  the 
eastern,  middle,  and  southern.  But  as  Federal  business  would 
be  very  light,  since  the  State  courts  still  dealt  most  intimately 
with  the  public  concerns,  no  circuit  judgeships  were  created, 
but  the  circuit  sessions  were  to  be  held  by  a  court  composed  of 
local  district  judges,  over  which  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
presided.  Such  was  the  composition  of  the  Federal  judiciary 
for  about  eighty  years,  except  for  a  brief  interpolation  of 
special  circuit  judges  in  1801  ;  the  number  of  supreme  and 
district  judges  and  the  boundaries  of  circuits  and  districts 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  1789.  Under  the  pressure  of  great  political 
excitement,  while  Andrew  Johnson  was  President,  Congress  reviewed 
and  reversed  this  ancient  and  rational  rule  of  construction.  The  ground 
now  taken  was  that  a  President  had  no  absolute  power  to  remove  be 
yond  suspending  an  officer  during  a  recess  of  the.Senate  and  submitting 
his  reasons  of  removal  when  that  branch  reassembled.  The  constitu 
tional  right  of  the  Senate  to  participate  in  removals  has  thus  been 
formally  asserted  in  later  times,  and  that  in  the  very  grave  instance 
where  the  President  seeks  to  change  one  of  his  own  cabinet  officers  and 
confidential  advisers. 


1789.  JUDICIARY   ACT.  97 

varying    from  time  to  time.     Clerks,  marshals,   and  district 
attorneys  were  part  of  the  judicial   machinery  from  the  first. 

Concerning  the  jurisdiction,  original  and  appellate,  of  these 
courts,  and  Federal  process,  this  and  a  second  act  of  the  same 
session  well  sketched  out  the  essentials.  District  courts  were 
to  take  both  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction,  having  original 
cognizance  of  admiralty  among  other  matters.  Some  seemed 
disposed  to  confer  jurisdiction  upon  State  courts,  but  Congress' 
concluded  wisely  that  the  United  States  government  should 
control  its  own  judiciary.  No  squander  upon  costly  public 
buildings  was  attempted,  but  Federal  prisoners  were  to  be 
lodged,  if  permitted,  in  the  jails  and  prisons  of  the  respective 
States. 

The  first  judiciary  act  created  the  office  of  the  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States,  a  personage  destined  at  no 
brief  interval  to  be  prominent  in  the  administration  because 
the  legal  adviser  of  the  executive.  But  here  Congress  evi 
dently  meant  to  establish  a  professional  rather  than  political 
functionary ;  one  learned  in  the  law,  to  be  intrusted  as  general 
counsel  of  the  United  States  with  the  management  of  its  in 
terest  in  suits  pending  before  the  Supreme  Court.  His  salary 
was  small  as  compared  with  that  of  a  secretary,  nor  were  oner 
ous  administrative  duties  exacted.  For  a  long  period,  in  fact, 
the  Attorney-General  was  permitted  to  reside  where  he  chose, 
and  he  commonly  availed  himself  of  his  official  station  to  in 
crease  his  private  clientage.  The  first  district  attorneys  had 
no  salaries  at  all,  but  were  compensated  by  fees.* 

(4.)  The  Territories. — No  element  has  been  more  potent  in 
moulding  the  character  and  destinies  of  the  American  Union 
than  its  acquisition,  at  various  periods,  of  immense  regions  at 
the  westward  containing  the  germs  of  new  States.  A  propa 
gating  process,  so  to  speak,  applied  to  the  settlement  of  these 
regions,  has  distinguished  the  policy  of  the  United  States  from 
that  of  all  other  nations,  ancient  or  modern.  It  was  no  new 
thing  for  distinct  political  communities  to  ally,  confederate,  or 
even  consolidate.  Colonies  have  been  planted  in  various  ages, 
ancient  colonization  being  more  purely  municipal  than  the 

*  Acts  September  24th,  1789,  c.  20 ;  September  29th,  1789,  c.  21 ; 
joint  resolution,  September  23d,  1789. 
VOL.  i. — 9 


98  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

modern ;  but  the  colony  has  either  been  politically  indepen 
dent  of  the  parent  city  or  state,  or  else  dependent  in  a  sense 
which  excludes  the  idea  of  equal  consideration.  Of  this  latter 
class  were  the  American  Colonies  while  their  allegiance  lasted. 
Our  country,  favored  by  its  local  situation  in  this  respect,  sets 
the  first  notable  example  of  a  political  community  which  con 
stantly  extends  the  bonds  of  equal  fellowship  by  rearing  new 
States  on  new  soil,  whose  children  shall  in  time  partake  of , the 
ancient  birthright — all  of  them  sons,  citizens  alike,  none  Ish- 
inaels  or  inferiors. 

That  was  a  solemn  trust,  then,  by  virtue  of  which  the  Ameri 
can  Union  had,  in  the  course  of  events,  already  come  into  pos 
session  of  the  great  Mississippi  Valley.  And  the  free  action  of 
the  new  constitutional  government,  in  respect  of  this  trust, 
was  now  found  to  be  fettered  in  these  two  respects  :  States  had 
not  quit-claimed  their  own  territorial  rights  except  condition 
ally  ;  and  as  to  a  general  territorial  policy  the  delegate  Con 
gress  of  the  Confederacy  had  taken  the  initiative. 

1780.  A  Continental  resolve  of  1780  is  the  corner-stone 

Oct.  10.  Of  our  territorial  system.  This  declares  that  the 
demesne  or  territorial  lands  "shall  be  disposed  of  for  the 
common  benefit  of  the  United  States,  and  be  settled  and 
formed  into  distinct  republican  States,  which  shall  become 
members  of  the  Federal  Union,  and  have  the  same  rights  of 
sovereignty,  freedom,  and  independence  as  the  other  States." 
The  Union  was  to  be,  then,  not  only  perpetual,  but  capable  of 
indefinite  expansion. 

Congress  now  prepared  to  take  up  the  regulation  of  the 
Territories,  as  constitutional  successors  in  a  trust  conditional 
in  terms  and  partially  administered.  In  the  old  States  repre 
sented,  the  tenure  of  land  was  derived  from  the  British  Crown 
under  Colonial  charters.  Such  States,  one  might  claim,  first 
leagued  like  sovereign  republics,  and  then,  through  popular 
conventions,  entered  into  a  closer  union.  But  such  a  theory 
could  only  fit  the  old  thirteen  Atlantic  States,  extending  per 
haps  to  others  like  Vermont,  Maine,  and  Western  Virginia, 
which  in  later  years  were  taken  from  their  loins,  and  possibly 
to  Kentucky,  Virginia's  child,  whose  early  settlement  ante 
dates  Federal  jurisdiction  over  the  Territories.  Of  all  other 


1789.  TERRITORIAL   POLICY.  99 

States,  present  or  prospective,  the  United  States  of  America 
is  sovereign  and  parent.  The  soil  came  to  her  by  gift,  pur 
chase,  or  conquest,  most  of  it  as  a.  wilderness.  Her  patent 
confers  the  primary  title;  or,  it  may  be,  her  due  confirmation 
of  private  grants  from  the  foreign  power  which  conceded  the 
land. 

In  1789  the  territorial  possessions  of  the  Union  were 
bounded  by  the  Mississippi  River  on  the  west,  and  subdivided 
by  the  Ohio  into  a  northern  and  southern  portion.  They  have 
since  extended  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  so  as  to  comprehend  the 
western  portion  of  the  Mississippi  basin,  together  with  Spanish 
Florida,  Texas,  and  Northern  Mexico,  and  what  was  but 
lately  the  Russian  Alaska :  an  area  from  which,  in  less  than 
a  century,  enough  States  with  appropriate  population  have 
already  been  carved  to  control  both  branches  of  Congress 
against  the  old  thirteen,  and  under  legal  forms  administer  the 
nation  exclusively  should  they  so  agree.  But  the  division 
line  has  never  run  in  that  direction,  and  new  States  vie  with 
the  old  in  patriotic  affection. 

Such  being  the  tenure,  how  has  the  Federal  government 
maintained  its  fundamental  jurisdiction  of  the  soil  and  trained 
up  its  territorial  offspring  in  political  allegiance?  First,  in 
execution  of  its  solemn  trust,  by  erecting  territorial  govern 
ments,  defining  their  boundaries,  and,  under  Federal  officers, 
keeping  the  early  settlements  well  in  hand  and  popular  rights 
protected  until  there  are  loyal  inhabitants  sufficiently  numer 
ous  to  call  a  convention,  draft  a  State  constitution  republican 
in  form,  and  apply  to  Congress  for  full  admission.  Next,  by 
a  revision  of  this  draft  in  the  Federal  legislature,  making  sure 
that  the  population  suffices,  and  insisting  as  a  prerequisite  of 
full  admission  that  the  State  and  its  inhabitants  shall  assent 
to  certain  fundamental  and  irrevocable  terms.  Finally,  upon 
assurance  that  all  conditions  are  fulfilled,  by  admitting  the 
State  and  its  inhabitants  to  full  representation  in  Congress, 
and  recognizing  the  new  community  as  an  equal  and  insepa 
rable  member  of  the  Union,  a  new  star  in  the  shining  con 
stellation. 

Among  the  irrevocable  conditions  usually  imposed  upon 
such  States  as  part  of  their  admission  compact  are  these : 


100  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

That  the  State  shall  never  interfere  with  the  primary  disposal 
of  its  soil  by  the  United  States ;  that  it  shall  not  tax  lauds 
still  owned  by  the  United  States,  nor  discriminate  by  assess 
ment  against  non-resident  owners ;  that  to  citizens  of  the 
United  States  its  navigable  waters  shall  be  a  common  highway 
and  forever  free.  On  its  own  part  the  United  States  has  made 
in  return  liberal  grants  out  of  the  public  laud  for  educational 
and  other  desirable  purposes. 

Such  briefly  is  the  only  colonization  which  the  American 
system  knows.  And  in  no  small  degree  must  the  initiation 
of  so  wise  and  comprehensive  a  policy  be  ascribed  to  our  Rev 
olutionary  ancestors  operating  through  the  States  which  sepa 
rately  relinquished  territorial  claims  for  the  common  benefit. 

The  Ordinance  of  1787  in  particular  deserves  to  rank  among 
immortal  parchments,  both  for  what  it  accomplished  and  what 
it  inspired.  Nor  would  it  be  wild  hyperbole  to  opine  that 
save  for  the  adoption  and  unflinching  execution  of  that  ordi 
nance  by  Congress  in  early  times,  the  American  Union  would 
ere  to-day  have  found  a  grave.  Its  application  was  to  what 
then  comprised  the  whole  Northwestern  territory,  or  that  do 
main,  south  of  the  great  lakes,  and  forked  by  the  Mississippi 
and  Ohio  rivers,  which  the  thriving  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin  now  occupy.  But  its  most 
memorable  provisions  related  to  human  rights:  ordaining  re 
ligious  freedom  perpetually,  offering  security  to  person  and 
property,  making  equal  distribution  among  the  heirs  of  an 
intestate,  encouraging  learning,  inculcating  good  faith  in  deal 
ing  with  the  Indians;  and,  above  all,  it  dedicated  the  soil  to 
freedom  forever.  The  best  fervor  of  Virginia,  the  chief  ced 
ing  State,  had  approved  all,  even  to  the  anti-slavery  section. 
Reported  in  July,  1787,  from  a  committee  of  which  Nathan 
Dane,  of  Massachusetts,  was  chairman,  the  ordi 
nance  passed  the  Continental  Congress  by  the  unan 
imous  consent  of  the  States  represented.* 


*  See  1  Madison's  Papers ;  3  Hildreth ;  Records  of  Continental  Con 
gress,  1784,  1785,  1787.  This  ordinance  mainly  embodied  the  provi 
sions  of  a  report  Jefferson  had  made  in  Congress  on  behalf  of  Virginia 
several  years  earlier.  Massachusetts  took  an  honorable  part  in  securing 
the  passage  of  this  famous  anti-slavery  proviso ;  but  honor  is  likewise 


1789.  ORDINANCE  OF  1787.  101 

The  Ordinance  of  1787  opened  the  gates  to  Northwestern 
colonization.  New  England  emigrants  who  had 
hitherto  been  working  in  the  direction  of  Canada 
and  New  York  now  set  their  faces  to  the  far  West.  General 
Kufus  Putnam,  at  the  head  of  a  colony  from  Massachusetts, 
founded  in  1788  the  first  settlement  in  the  Northwest  territory 
at  the  confluence  of  the  Muskingum  and  Ohio  rivers,  giving 
it  the  name  of  Marietta,  in  honor  of  the  Queen  of  France; 
and  a  stockade  fort  was  commenced  for  protection  against  the 
hostile  Indians.  Columbia,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Little 
Miami,  was  founded  the  same  year;  soon  after  which  Fort 
Washington  was  built  on  the  present  site  of  Cincinnati.  This 
emigration  was  fostered  by  land  companies  and  individual 
capitalists,  chiefly  of  New  England  and  New  Jersey,  who, 
soon  after  the  passage  of  the  ordinance,  purchased  Ohio  tracts 
by  the  million  acres,  upon  the  basis  of  government  surveys 
previously  made.  During  1788  and  1789  full  20,000  men, 
women,  and  children,  by  estimate,  went  down  the  Ohio  in 
boats  to  become  settlers  on  its  banks.* 

Congress  at  this  first  session  approved  the  liberal  policy  of 
its  predecessor  by  passing  an  act  in  full  confirmation  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1787.  Among  other  stipulations  was  one  that 
out  of  the  Northwest  territory  should  be  hereafter  formed  not 
less  than  three  nor  more  than  five  States  ;  which  States,  as  the 
act  further  declared,  should  forever  remain  a  part  of  the 
United  States.  This  was  the  only  present  territorial  legisla 
tion  of  consequence  ;  for,  while  weightier  matters  pressed,  pro 
vision  for  the  general  survey,  sale,  and  settlement  of  the  pub 
lic  territories  was  postponed. f 

due  to  Virginia,  whose  general  sentiment,  when  brought  fairly  to  the 
test,  heartily  approved  the  new  experiment.  A  limited  anti-slavery 
proviso  had  failed,  however,  in  1784,  through  the  defection  of  Virginia 
and  the  other  Southern  delegates.  Rufus  King  and  Nathan  Dane,  at 
different  stages  of  this  measure,  were  largely  instrumental  in  procuring 
its  eventual  passflge  as  an  ordinance  for  freedom. 

*  3  and  4  Iliklreth's  United  States;  Lossing's  War  of  1812;  1  Mad 
ison's  Papers;  various  local  works.  Putnam's  party  landed  April  7th, 
1788.  A  few  Moravian  missionary  settlements  in  the  Ohio  country  were 
of  earlier  date,  their  lirst  visit  being  in  1701. 

f  Act  August  7th,  1789,  c.  8. 


102  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

(5.)  Amendments  to  the  Constitution. — Pursuant  to  pledges 
of  the  Federal  leaders  in  so  many  State  conventions,  and  in 
compliance  with  the  general  voice,  Madison  called  up  the 
subject  of  proposing  new  amendments  to  the  States.  Already 
had  his  colleague  Bland  laid  before  the  House  the  Virginia 
May.  resolutions  proposing  a  new  general  convention.  In 
July-  ample  season  for  discussion  and  final  action  before 
the  autumn  adjournment,  Madison  presented  for  considera 
tion  a  selection  of  the  most  desirable  amendments  emanating 
from  the  ratifying  States. 

These  State  propositions  were  very  numerous,  fifty-five  in 
all;  but  many  were  identical  in  substance  if  not  expression. 
Some  related  to  constitutional  details,  which,  unobjectionable 
perhaps,  or  even  admirable  for  the  time  being,  were  on  the 
.whole  better  left  to  the  more  flexible  will  of  Congress.  Others 
involved  issues  purely  local  or  transitory.  As  to  certain 
of  them,  such  as  the  New  York  and  Virginia  requirement  of 
a  two-thirds  vote  of  Congress  for  leading  measures,*  the  Phil 
adelphia  Convention  had  once  compromised  differences  not 
without  difficulty.  There  appeared  no  proposition  touching 
upon  the  slave-trade,  direct  taxes,  or  the  equal  suffrage  of 
States  in  the  Senate;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  these  clauses  were 
nailed  into  the  Constitution  with  a  clinch  that  made  amend 
ment  impossible/)-  The  changes  most  widely  called  for  could 
on  the  whole  be  made  without  sacrificing  anything  which  a 
dispassionate  judgment  would  have  pronounced  vital  to  the 
success  of  the  present  scheme.  They  simply  placed  the  Fed 
eral  Union  under  bonds,  as  it  were,  for  good  behavior. 

In  the  course  of  the  session  seventeen  of  these  proposed 
amendments  received  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote  of  the  House 
for  submission  to  the  State  legislatures;  the  Senate  two-thirds 
vote  reduced  by  compression  the  number  to  twelve.  The 
chief  purport  of  these  amendments  was  to  annex  to  the  Con 
stitution  a  more  specific  bill  of  rights.  Freedom  of  religion, 


*  Yet  the  New  York  proposition  that  war  should  never  be  declared 
by  Congress,  except  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  might  have  been  well  worth 
considering. 

f  See  U.  S.  Constitution,  Article  V.,  two  final  clauses. 


1789.          AMENDMENTS   TO   THE   CONSTITUTION.  103 

of  speech,  and  of  the  press  were  thereby  secured  ;  the  right 
of  petition  ;  the  private  right  to  bear  arras;  immunity  from 
unreasonable  search  or  seizure,  the  quartering  of  soldiers  in 
private  houses,  the  taking  of  private  property  without  just 
compensation,  and  arbitrary  arrest.  The  right  of  trial  by 
jury  was  more  positively  asserted  than  before,  and  excessive 
bail,  excessive  fines,  and  excessive  imprisonment  were  forbid 
den.  Finally,  there  was  express  reservation  made  to  the  States 
respectively,  "  or  to  the  people,"  of  powers  not  delegated  to 
the  United  States  nor  prohibited  to  the  States  by  the  Consti 
tution, — a  sop  to  State  sovereignty  more  diluted  than  Anti- 
Federalists  had  wished.  Amendments  like  these  were  worth 
accepting.  They  rendered  the  Constitution  its  own  expounder. 
Nor  were  the  rights  themselves  so  sacred  in  the  eye  of  sover 
eign  authority  that  our  good  citizens  did  not  remember  what 
it  was  to  be  despoiled  of  them.  It  would  now  be  clearer  that 
powers  were  withheld  which  the  people  never  meant  to  grant. 
Even  a  good  maxim,  inscribed  above  the  judgment-seat,  may 
prevent  many  a  bloody  crime. 

That  these  harmonizing  amendments  were  needful  as  an 
assurance  of  public  faith,  and  the  means  of  strengthening 
public  confidence  in  the  new  government,  appeared  not  only 
from  Washington's  inaugural  utterances,  but  in  the  prompt 
action  of  the  States  themselves.  Out  of  the  twelve  amend 
ments  which  Congress  presently  submitted,  ten  by  State  rati 
fication  became  part  of  our  fundamental  law  before  1791 ; 
only  the  two  of  the  least  importance  failing.*  But  here  Fed 
eralism  made  its  first  palpable  error.  Not  a  few  over-confident 
leaders  in  the  New  England  and  New  York  quarter  inclined 
to  hold  unconditional  possession  of  the  citadel  they  had  so 
easily  gained ;  secretly  wishing  that  the  first  new  ramparts 
erected  might  rather  be  for  walling  popular  influence  cut  than 
in,  and  blind  both  to  their  party  pledges  and  the  strength  of 

*  Of  the  two  amendments  which  failed  of  complete  ratification,  one 
fixed  the  ratio  of  representation  in  the  House,  and  the  other  forbade 
that  any  law  varying  the  compensation  of  Senators  and  Representatives 
should  take  effect  until  a  new  election  of  Representatives  had  inter 
vened.  Matters  like  these,  it  was  concluded,  might  fairly  be  left  to  the 
discretion  of  legislators  acting  each  under  a  sense  of  responsibility. 


104  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

the  public  sentiment  which  now  asked  an  honest  fulfilment. 
While  the  propositions  were  pending  in  Congress  they  tried 
to  thwart  and  to  delay  action.  Change,  they  argued,  ought 
not  to  come  before  experience.  "  The  proposed  amendments," 
writes  Ames  sneeringly  to  a  friend,  while  confessing  his  par 
tiality  for  a  true  aristocracy,  "  will  stimulate  the  country's 
stomach  as  little  as  hasty  pudding."*  Livermore,  in  debate, 
used  language  quite  as  contemptuous.  The  recollection  of 
this  foolhardy  and  useless  opposition  long  rankled  in  the  pub 
lic  mind ;  and  here  was  manifested  that  obliquity  of  political 
vision  in  talented  chieftains  which  marked  the  Federalist 
party  for  division  and  early  ruin."f 

(6.)  Salaries  and  Appropriations. — In  the  first  general  ap 
propriation  act  for  defraying  the  year's  Federal  expenses, 
$216,000  were  assigned  for  the  civil  list,  $137,000  for  the  War 
Department,  and  $96,000  for  invalid  pensions;  besides  $190,- 
000  to  pay  unsatisfied  warrants  which  had  been  issued  by  the 
late  treasury  board.  In  some  recent  years  of  peace  three 
hundred  times  the  respective  amounts  would  not  have  main 
tained  the  civil  establishment,  kept  up  the  army  and  navy,  or 
paid  the  pensioners  of  the  United  States  for  the  same  length 
of  time.  No  general  provision  was  yet  made  for  the  public 
debt ;  an  exhaustive  search  into  the  present  condition  of  the 
Treasury  being  essential. J  Salaries,  too,  were  graded  with 
economy.  That  of  the  Chief  Justice  was  only  $4000  per  an 
num  ;  heads  of  departments  received  even  less.  It  was  not 
without  murmuring  that  Congress  consented  to  fix  the  yearly 
compensation  of  the  Vice-Presideut  as  high  as  $5000;  and  this 
was  done  chiefly  because  of  the  dignity  attached  to  the  office, 
which  the  incumbent  had  set  out  to  maintain  by  launch 
ing  into  expenditures  rather  profuse  for  one  of  his  private 
means;  for  as  concerned  the  actual  duties,  to  no  one  did  they 
appear  more  contemptible  than  to  Adams  himself.  But 
Washington's  inaugural  suggestion  did  not  prevent  Congress 
from  placing  the  Presidential  establishment  upon  an  ex 
tremely  liberal  footing.  As  a  rich  incumbent  of  the  highest 

*  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1789. 

f  See  1  U.  S.  Statutes  at  Large,  97 ;  Annals  of  Congress. 

J  Acts  of  August  20th,  1789,  c.  10;  September  29th,  1789,  c.  23. 


1789.  SALARIES   AND   APPROPRIATIONS.  105 

office,  Washington  made  his  own  rule  good  by  entertaining 
in  a  style  which  exhausted  his  §25,000  a  year  in  the  public 
service.* 

For  members  of  Congress  it  was  agreed  that  a  per  diem  of 
$6  should  be  allowed  to  each  Senator  and  Representative,  with 
mileage,  according  to  the  distance  one  travelled  in  reaching 
the  seat  of  government.  Double  pay  was  granted  to  the 
Speaker  of  the  House,  an  official  whose  dignity  corresponded 
in  a  certain  sense  with  that  of  the  Vice-President.f 

Such  were  the  leading  measures  of  the  new  Congress  at  its 
first  session.  Other  important  topics  were  discussed  but  not 
acted  upon,  to  which  allusion  will  be  made  hereafter. 

Before  the  members  disperse  to  their  several  homes,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  dwell  for  a  few  moments  upon  the  etiquette 
which  marked  this  singular  coalition  of  distinct  assemblies  to 
act  as  one  Congress.  More  than  once  at  the  first  session  a 
clash  of  authority  was  perceptible,  a  division  of  sentiment  as 
to  the  limits  of  their  respective  functions.  But  for  the  secrecy 
of  the  Senate  debates  this  would  have  been  plainly  revealed 
to  the  country.  Senators,  as  representing  States  in  their  in 
tegrity  and  selected  for  long  terras,  at  once  arrogated  superi 
ority.  This  was  indicated  the  very  day  a  quorum  assembled 
by  the  manner  it  invited  the  House  to  attend  the  electoral 
count,  and  more  positive  symptoms  presently  appeared.  It 
was  the  House,  the  popular  and  more  numerous  branch,  less 
resembling  the  old  single  Congress  than  the  Senate,  that  felt 
the  first  disadvantage  of  such  an  encounter  ;  but  its  dignity 

*  Acts  of  September  llth,  1789,  c.  13  ;  September  23d,  1789,  c.  18  ;  Sep 
tember  24th,  1789,  c.  19  ;  Annuls  of  Congress.  The  first  change  ever  made 
in  the  Presidential  salary,  and  which  aflected  General  Grant's  second 
term  of  office,  in  1873  (by  an  act  which  may  be  thought  more  obsequi 
ous  than  just),  was  to  double  the  Presidential  allowance  to  $50,000. 
Salaried  officers  have,  however,  been  attached  to  the  President's  house 
hold,  and  the  mansion  refurnished,  as  additional  means  of  defraying 
the  executive  expenses.  The  Constitution  itself  operates  strongly  against 
the  practicability  of  frequent  variations  in  the  ^Presidential  compensa 
tion.  Constitution  U.  S.,  Article  II.,  \  1,  7. 

f  Act  September  22d,  1789,  c.  17. 


106  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES,      CHAP.  II. 

was  quickly  asserted,  and  the  popular  impulse  from  without 
soon  carried  it  buoyantly  alongside. 

The  Senate,  for  example,  proposed  sending  bills  to  the  House 
by  a  secretary,  while  House  bills  should  be  brought  up  by 
two  Representatives.  But  this  mark  of  deference  the  House 
declined  to  bestow,  and  in  the  end  each  body  was  left  to  send 
messages  by  persons  of-  its  own  choice.  Again,  in  fixing  the 
compensation  of  Congress,  the  Senators  claimed  higher  pay 
for  themselves  than  for  the  Representatives,  because,  to  be 
frank,  they  esteemed  their  dignity  the  greater.  To  this  point 
they  adhered  with  such  pertinacity  that,  sooner  than  suffer 
the  compensation  bill  to  fail  altogether,  the  House  permitted 
the  insertion  of  a  clause  which  promised  Senators  a  per  diem 
of  $7  after  the  4th  of  March,  1795.  The  concession,  however, 
had  more  shadow  than  substance,  for  before  that  date  the 
House  was  too  strongly  intrenched  to  permit  that  a  co-ordi 
nate  branch  in  most  particulars  should  vaunt  itself  as  an 
upper  House. 

The  Senate,  too,  inclined  more  to  ceremonials  than  the 
House.  Upon  Washington's  arrival  at  New  York,  Congress 
was  found  disputing  as  to  how  he  should.be  addressed;  one 
cause  for  delaying  the  inauguration.  Postponing  the  discus 
sion,  however,  as  was  needful,  the  two  Houses  resumed  it  as 
soon  as  the  exercises  were  over ;  the  special  question  being  how 
to  frame  proper  replies  to  the  inaugural  address.  The  Senate 
proposed  the  title  of  "  His  Highness,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  of  America  and  Protector  of  their  Liberties," 
but  the  House  would  have  only  that  simple  one  of  the  Consti 
tution,  "President  of  the  United  States  of  America."  The 
Senate  was  stubborn,  and  conference  produced  no  agreement. 
So  the  House,  having  framed  a  reply  after  its  own  taste,  pre 
sented  it  to  the  President.  This  was  a  checkmate,  and  the 
Senate  had  now  to  follow  with  an  address  similarly  couched  or 
else  appear  ridiculous.* 

Titles  were  at  the  time  rife  in  most  of  the  older  States,  where, 
naturally  enough,  royal  etiquette  had  left  its  permanent  trace. 
It  was  not  surprising,  then,  to  find  leading  newspapers  taking 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  May  5th-14th,  1789. 


1789.  CEREMONIALS   IN   CONGRESS.  107 

sides  with  the  Senate,  and  pressing  for  new  official  epithets 
with  silly  arguments  and  sillier  anecdotes.*  Long  association 
had  persuaded  men  that  government  could  not  walk  except  ori 
stilts.  And  yet  that  it  is  the  antiquation  of  primitive  manners, 
not  the  new  introduction  of  something  foreign,  which  chiefly 
ennobles  these  little  affairs  of  ceremonial,  they  may  allow  who 
consider  how  many  emblems  of  state  which  posterity  rever 
ences  had  a  quaint  and  even  prosaic  origin.  If  the  axe  in  the 
bundle  of  rods,  the  woolsack,  the  garter,  become  illustrious 
tokens  through  association,  not  less  in  time  may  the  three- 
cornered  hat,  the  Speaker's  gavel,  and  the  mansion  painted 
white,  and  when  these  fail  reverence  vanishes  altogether. 
Washington  was  still  paraded  as  "  His  Highness  "  in  certain 
prints,  but  the  infection  did  not  take  with  the  people.  Events 
in  Europe  brought  even  royal  epithets  into  unusual  contempt, 
and  the  saying  went  abroad  that  titles  were  a  contrivance  to 
catch  fools  with.  Writing  from  Paris,  where  the  strange 
spectacle  was  beheld  of  a  king  saluting  the  populace  from  a 
balcony,  wearing  the  fraternal  cockade,  Jeiferson  exulted 
over  this  downfall  of  titles  in  the  American  Congress,  adding 
his  too  sanguine  hope  that  the  terms  of  Excellency,  Honor, 
Worship,  and  Esquire  would  forever  disappear  likewise.f 

Under  a  Chief  Magistrate  so  ripe  in  experience,  sound,  tem 
perate,  and  conscientious  as  Washington  the  nation  started 
auspiciously  on  the  new  career.  For  some  weeks  after  his 
inauguration  there  was  little  for  the  President  to  do  at  New 
York  beyond  giving  and  receiving  hospitalities  ;  so  he  em 
ployed  his  leisure  in  studying  the  situation  of  the  public  busi 
ness  froni'the  archives.  Having  requested  those  who  continued 
in  temporary  charge  of  the  departments  to  report  as  to  their 
"present  condition  in  writing,  he  studied  these  reports  carefully. 
At  certain  hours  of  the  day  he  pored  over  the  foreign  corre 
spondence  subsequent  to  1783,  and  with  pen  in  hand  took 
down  notes  and  made  abstracts  after  his  customary  method. 

*  See  the  story  about  the  landlady's  mistake,  who  was  asked  quarters 
for  the  President,  and  thought  the  president  of  a  certain  college  was 
intended.  Boston  Centinel,  November,  1789. 

f  Jeflerson's  Works,  August  9th,  1789;  1  Madison's  Writings,  May- 
August,  1789. 


108  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

While  the  bills  which  created  the  Dew  offices  were  pending 
before  Congress,  Washington  matured  the  rules  which  should 
guide  him  in  selecting  persons  to  fill  them.  It  was  clear  that 
whatever  their  first  misgivings,  most  men  of  wide  merit  who 
had  inclined  to  the  anti-constitutional  side  were  now  ready  to 
lend  his  administration  their  hearty  support ;  besides  those  who 
had  borne  the  burden  of  establishing  the  new  government. 
With  such  abundant  material  to  choose  from,  he  determined  to 
draw  round  him  the  great  characters  of  the  country  with  little 
regard  to  contrasting  shades  of  political  opinion.  He  was  not 
averse  to  widening  the  field  of  selection  if  his  administration 
would  thereby  gain  in  the  affections  of  the  people  and  the 
respect  of  mankind.  Of  party  services  as  such,  and  rewards 
for  party  work,  he  determined  to  know  nothing.  Personal 
devotion  to  himself  called  for  personal,  not  public,  remunera 
tion  ;  and  indeed  the  compass  of  his  personal  following  at  this 
moment  was  scarcely  less  than  unanimous  America.  None 
crowded  round  to  offer  advice  or  to  solicit  office ;  for  in  making 
appointments,  as  also  in  regulating  his  executive  course,  Wash 
ington  consulted  as  he  saw  fit,  though  rarely  unwisely;  usually 
in  the  form  of  a  letter  so  as  to  elicit  Avritten  and  thoughtful 
replies.  Whoever  might  be  intimate  in  the  President's  house 
hold,  Washington's  tender  of  office  came  from  the  man  him 
self.  Three  qualifications  he  believed  essential  for  the  highest 
civil  offices  :  integrity,  capacity,  and  conspicuousuess,  the  last 
scarcely  less  than  the  other  two.  Unknown  characters  he 
did  not  wish  for  exalted  stations.  "I  want  men,"  he  would 
say,  "  already  of  marked  eminence  before  the  country  ;  not 
only  as  the  more  likely  to  be  serviceable,  but  because  the 
public  will  more  readily  trust  them."  Sectional  claims  too  he 
did  not  disregard  ;  for,  to  his  thinking,  executive  administra 
tion,  as  in  the  legislative  and  judiciary  departments,  required 
to  be  largely  representative  in  character,  in  order  to  pervade 
well  the  whole  Union.  With  these  cardinal  precepts  for  his 
guidance  and  method,  it  followed  that  the  office  pursued  the 
man  more  closely  during  the  administration  of  the  first  Presi 
dent  than  as  yet  under  any  of  his  successors  ;  far  more,  in  fact, 
than  would  be  possible  in  any  age  where  party  councils  pre 
dominate  or  the  people's  candidate  has  to  be  worked  out  by 


1789.  APPOINTMENTS   TO   OFFICE.  109 

processes  less  simple  than  the  spontaneous  will  of  the  people 
themselves.  Nor,  perhaps,  has  it  happened  on  the  other  hand 
that  in  so  great  a  proportion  of  the  higher  national  appoint 
ments,  men  of  distinction  and  diverse  views  have  had  the 
opportunity  of  declining  an  office  delicately  and  unexpectedly 
tendered. 

The  first  tender  of  office  under  the  Federal  administration 
was  made  to  John  Jay,  of  New  York,  a  tried  patriot  and  a 
man  of  honor  after  Washington's  pattern.  Jay  chose  the 
Chief  Justiceship  in  preference  to  remaining  as  before  at  the 
head  of  Foreign  Affairs ;  and  though  but  briefly  adorning 
what  was  at  that  day  the  most  splendid  sinecure  position  in 
the  gift  of  the  President,  of  him  it  has  been  fittingly  said,  that 
when  the  ermine  fell  upon  the  shoulders  of  John  Jay  it  rested 
upon  one  as  pure  and  spotless  as  itself. 

General  Henry  Knox,  of  Massachusetts,  was  continued  in 
charge  of  the  War  Department,  a  post  with  whose  routine 
duties  he  was  quite  familiar.  A  Boston  bookseller,  with  only 
militia  experience  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  Knox  had  risen 
to  the  command  of  the  patriot  artillery  in  the  course  of  the 
Revolution,  and  at  its  close  ranked  among  the  first  major-gen 
erals.  To  statesmanship  he  could  lay  little  claim,  but  as  a  sol 
dier  and  administrator  he  had  cminentqualificatious,  which  were 
well  set  off  by  a  commanding  figure,  inclining  to  corpulence,  a 
sonorous  voice,  and  an  imposing  manner.  Over  one  hand, 
whose  fingers  had  been  mutilated,  not  in  bloody  war,  but  while 
on  a  duck-shooting  trip,  he  wore  a  black  silk  handkerc'hief, 
which  he  used  to  wind  and  unwind  while  in  animated  conver 
sation.  His  tastes,  like  his  ruddy,  open  face,  showed  the 
familiar  type  of  the  well-fed  Briton.  There  could  be  no  ques 
tion  of  Knox's  fitness  for  the  routine  of  his  present  post,  nor 
was  there  a  more  honest,  manly,  hospitable  officer  in  the  public 
service;  yet  there  was  a  bit  of  inflation  about  him,  such  as 
familiars,  encouraged  by  his  good-humor,  might  be  tempted  to 
probe  after  with  a  pin,  and,  like  some  of  his  own  guns,  his  range 
was  not  quite  equal  to  his  calibre.* 

It  was  the  Treasury  Department  whose  proper  admin istra- 


See  Drake's  Memoir  of  Ivnox ;  Sullivan's  Familiar  Letters. 


110  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

tion  raost  required  a  man  of  brains.  Nor  did  Washington 
judge  unfitly  of  capacity  when  he  passed  by  all  of  the  old 
board  and  called  his  young  favorite,  Alexander  Hamilton,  of 
New  York,  to  unravel  the  tangled  skein  of  Continental 
finances.  His  prodigious  energy  of  character  was  well  appre 
ciated,  and  likewise  the  unrequited  service  he  had  lately  ren 
dered  the  Union  cause  in  his  own  State. 

All  these  three  were  Northern  men  of  reputed  centralizing 
tendencies.  But  for  the  two  high  stations  which  remained  at 
his  disposal  Washington  fixed  upon  public  characters  of  a 
different  cast ;  Southerners,  friends  of  State  rights,  persons 
whose  appointment  would  conciliate  the  more  reluctant  wing 
of  the  constitutional  army.  Representative  men  of  this  type 
were  best  found  in  his  own  State,  and  accordingly  he  sum 
moned  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Edmund  Randolph,  of  Virginia. 
Governor  Randolph,  whose  wavering  course  as  a  supporter  of 
the  Constitution  has  already  been  marked,  was  appointed 
Attorney-General,  a  post  for  which,  as  a  man  of  elegant  man 
ners  and  an  accomplished  lawyer,  he  was  not  ill  adapted, 
while  his  want  of  compass  and  rudder  made  him  an  unsafe 
ferryman  for  any  political  party  to  trust  far  from  shore.  But 
Jefferson's  name  and  influence  were  abiding;  and  wishing  to 
gain  them  Washington  had  Madison  feel  the  way  first,  and  then 
pressed  the  Department  of  State  upon  him  by  personal  letter 
so  earnestly,  and  withal  so  gracefully,  that  refusal  must  have 
been  ungrateful.  Jefferson  had  already  sought  a  leave  of 
absence  from  abroad  sufficient  for  arranging  his  private  affairs, 
and  obtaining  it  sailed  for  Virginia.  It  was  upon  his  arrival, 
about  the  time  Congress  arose,  that  he  found  himself  already 
appointed  and  confirmed  as  Secretary  of  State.  Undecided  at 
first,  and  seemingly  indifferent  to  public  station,  unless  it  were 
to  return  to  France,  he  finally  accepted  the  office,  and  setting 
out  for  New  York  in  midwinter  relieved  Jay  of  its  temporary 
charge. 

Though  three  great  States  thus  absorbed  the  chief  executive 
offices,  Washington  made  his  lesser  appointments  upon  the 
same  rule  of  conspicuous  merit.  For  associate  justices  of  the 
Supreme  Court  were  selected  William  Gushing,  of  Massachu 
setts,  the  chief  justice  of  that  State  ;  James  Wilson,  the  fore- 


1789.  APPOINTMENTS   TO   OFFICE.  Ill 

most  among  Federalists  in  Pennsylvania  ;  Robert  H.  Harri 
son,  chief  justice  of  Maryland  ;  John  Blair,  a  Virginia  judge, 
one  of  the  only  three  men  of  his  delegation  at  Philadelphia 
who  signed  the  Federal  Constitution  ;  and  the  South  Caro 
linian  of  Stamp  Act  renown,  John  Rutledge.  Harrison  having 
declined  the  honor,  as  preferring  to  be  chancellor  of  Maryland, 
Washington,  at  a  later  date  and  after  the  accession  of  North 
Carolina,  appointed  one  of  the  chief  lawyers  in  the  State, 
James  Iredell,  in  his  stead.  It  was  the  spring  of  1790 
before  the  Supreme  Court  was  fully  organized,  a  grave  tribu 
nal  composed  of  a  succession  of  learned  men  holding  office 
nominally  by  a  life  tenure,  whose  familiar,  strongly  marked 
countenances,  as  year  after  year  they  sat  behind  a  long  table, 
arrayed  in  scarlet  or  black  silk  robes,  hearing  arguments  and 
holding  annual  terms  at  the  seat  of  government  while  Con 
gress  was  in  session,  furnished  the  spectacle  of  permanent 
dignity  in  the  midst  of  political  surge,  like  some  tall  promon 
tory  in  the  sea.  But  the  conserving  influence  of  the  third 
department  of  government  was  not  at  once  felt ;  and  under 
Washington's  administration  judicial  business  was  slack  in  the 
Federal  courts  and  important  vacancies  often  occurred.* 

Samuel  Osgood,  of  Massachusetts,  a  man  of  experience, 
lately  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  board,  was  appointed  Post 
master-General.  Local  distinction  in  the  legal  profession  was 
carefully  regarded  in  filling  the  district  judgeships.  In  select 
ing  marshals  and  custom  officers  Washington  showed  much 
favor  to  gallant  Revolutionary  comrades,  some  of  whom  were 
now  in  straitened  circumstances.  No  foreign  appointments 
were  yet  made. 

With  respect  to  his  official  advisers,  Washington  inclined  at 
first  to  pursue  the  strict  letter  of  the  Constitution,  which,  con 
ceding  the  propriety  of  taking  official  opinions,  fetters  the  Chief 
Magistrate  by  no  board  of  executive  counsellors.  His  habit 
of  mind  led  him  to  take  advice  and  weigh  it,  deciding  upon 
his  own  course  of  action  ;  and  he  would  consult  at  discretion 


*  The  Judiciary  Act  of  1789  prescribed  semiannual  terms  for  the 
Supreme  Court ;  but  for  better  convenience  the  change  was  soon  after 
made  which  dispensed  with  a  summer  session. 


112  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

the  Vice-President,  Chief  Justice,  or  a  legislative  leader  like 
Madison,  and  not  executive  heads  alone.  Routine  matters 
were  referred  with  military  precision  to  the  Secretary  con 
cerned.  For  under  the  American  system  as  distinguished 
from  the  British  there  is  no  gently  coercive  council  known  as 
a  ministry,  and  each  department  is  independent  of  the  other, 
while  none  need  bend  to  the  dictation  of  Congress.  But  pres 
ently  consulting  his  heads  of  departments  and  Attorney-Gen 
eral  as  more  immediate  advisers,  he  worked  into  the  con 
venient  practice,  after  the  war  between  France  and  England 
commenced,  of  assembling  them  and  making  oral  consultation ; 
whence  the  origin  of  what  we  later  term  a  cabinet  and  cabinet 
meetings.  Harmony  of  action  and  expedition  upon  affairs 
of  great  public  moment  were  reasons  doubtless  for  this  latter 
step ;  but  with  the  first  council  of  four,  selected  from  such 
diverse  material,  dissension  and  rupture  resulted.  As  Jeffer 
son  used  to  say,  he  and  Hamilton  were  pitted  against  one 
another  like  two  cocks ;  and  Randolph  siding  more  naturally 
with  the  one  and  Knox  with  the  other,  the  President  had  often 
to  choose  a  course  of  action  which  half  his  advisers  openly  dis 
approved. 

No  precisian  or  martinet,  Washington  was  punctilious  in 
the  smallest  matters  of  etiquette.  Pie  had  precedents  to  es 
tablish  as  the  earliest  chief  executive,  and  long  intercourse 
with  mankind  in  exalted  station  had  taught  him  the  import 
ance  of  rendering  to  each  his  due  in  official  intercourse, 
though  it  were  only  by  a  bow,  a  smile,  or  a  well-chosen  word 
or  two;  and  this  with  him  was  not  diplomacy,  but  a  matter  of 
honor  and  good  breeding.  One  so  reticent  by  nature  must 
otherwise  have  constantly  offended  those  who  strove  to  deserve 
well.  Soon  after  his  inauguration  he  formally  consulted 
Adams,  Jay,  Hamilton,  and  Madison  in  writing  upon  various 
points  of  official  behavior.  Should  he  adopt  a  line  of  conduct 
which  would  keep  him  from  mixed  company  on  the  one  hand, 
and  from  total  seclusion  on  the  other?  What  should  be  the 
days  and  hours  for  receiving  visits  of  compliment  and  what 
for  business?  Where  should  he  draw  the  line  in  entertaining 
company?  To  these  questions,  gravely  propounded,  only  the 
replies  of  Adanxs  and  Hamilton  are  preserved,  both  of  whom 


1789.  EXECUTIVE   CEREMONIALS.  113 

were  for  a  more  imposing  ceremonial  than  the  public  taste 
would  warrant.  Hamilton  would  have  given  special  access 
to  Senators  in  preference  to  Representatives.  Adams  was  for 
a  liberal  provision  of  chamberlains,  aides-de-camp,  secretaries, 
and  masters  of  ceremonies;  compelling  private  individuals  who 
desired  an  audience  to  apply  first  to  a  minister  of  state.*  In 
some  other  respects  their  suggestions  were  followed,  and  Wash 
ington  determined  to  drop  those  indiscriminate  dinners  to 
persons  of  both  sexes  which  the  presidents  of  Congress  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  giving,  thereby  slighting  some  and  cheap 
ening  hospitality  to  all,  and  to  confine  such  attentions  to  a  small 
number  at  a  time,  with  a  preference  for  official  characters. 

New  York  was  at  this  time  a  bustling  little  city,  with  a 
population  numbering  about  30,000  souls  and  rapidly  increas 
ing.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  its  inhabitants  did  business, 
fed,  and  slept  between  the  site  of  the  present  City  Hall  and 
the  Battery.  The  best  society  centred  in  the  neighborhood  of 
AVall  and  Broad  streets.  There  were  elegant  country  seats  up 
Broadway  and  at  Richmond  Hill,  where  the  Vice-President  took 
up  his  abode  in  a  picturesque  mansion,  embowered  among  fine 
oaks  and  forest  trees,  and  commanding  an  extensive  landscape, 
with  glimpses  of  the  Hudson  in  the  distance.  Washington's 
first  place  of  residence,  where  Cherry  Street  corners  upon 
Franklin  Square,  was  considered  too  far  up  town  for  conve 
nience  and  beyond  the  fashionable  quarters,  and  he  presently 
moved  to  a  spacious  house  in  Broadway  near  Bowling  Green, 
Congress  providing  and  furnishing  the  Presidential  headquar 
ters  according  to  law.  There  was  more  richness  of  style  among 
New  Yorkers  than  either  Philadelphia  or  Boston  could  boast. 
The  sombreuess  of  the  Quaker  City,  America's  chief  metropolis, 
was  absent,  nor  did  houses  huddle  upon  such  narrow  and  crooked 
streets  as  made  Boston  a  Daedalian  town  to  all  new-comers. 
The  buildings  in  New  York  were  chiefly  of  brick  smarting 
under  fresh  coats  of  paint.  Strangers  thought  the  inhabitants 
deficient  in  good  breeding,  and  complained  that  they  did  not 
cultivate  agreeable  conversation,  but  talked  loud  and  very 

*  Writings  of  Washington,  Adams,  Hamilton,  May,  1789. 
VOL.  i. — 10 


114  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

fast,  paying  no  attention  to  one  another.*  Yet  at  this  thriv 
ing  centre  there  was  a  highly  polished  society,  which  the 
Clintons,  Jays,  Schuylers,  and  Livingstons  led  with  grace 
and  refinement,  entertaining  their  transient  guests  of  the 
nation  with  generous  hospitality. 

The  style  maintained  by  President  Washington  was  rich 
and  elegant :  ostentatious,  perhaps,  as  regarded  equipage,  for 
he  had  the  Virginian's  taste  for  fine  horses  with  the  best  of  a 
Virginian's  means  for  gratifying  it.  The  state  carriage,  with 
its  body  of  hemispherical  shape,  cream-colored,  and  tricked 
out  with  dainty  devices  of  little  Cupids  supporting  festoons, 
was  the  town  wonder ;  especially  on  state  occasions,  when  it 
was  drawn  by  six  blood  horses,  four  being  the  usual  number. 
The  pomp  of  this  turn-out  was  enhanced  by  footmen  and  out 
riders  in  livery.  Yet  in  public,  as  in  private,  Washington 
refrained  from  lavish  outlay;  scrutinizing  each  expenditure 
carefully,  and  managing  with  exact  economy,  so  as  not  to  exceed 
his  stated  income,  a  habit  in  which  he  differed  greatly  from 
most  other  Southern  planters  in  public  life.  The  earliest  social 
institution  at  the  President's  mansion  was  the  levee,  a  species 
of  starched  assembly  upon  which  were  passed  differing  com 
ments.  Some  have  insisted  that  Washington  was  persuaded 
to  adopt  it,  and  by  a  parade  set  who  were  bent  upon  wind 
ing  up  executive  ceremonials  to  the  utmost ;  but  Washington's 
own  explanation  is  that  he  found  something  of  the  kind 
necessary,  because  on  his  first  arrival  he  became  so  overrun 
by  people  wishing  to  see  him  for  mere  ceremony  that  he  had 
no  time  left  for  business/]"  Levees  were  held  every  Tuesday 
afternoon  from  3  to  4.  A  polar  atmosphere  surrounded  them  ; 
particularly  the  first,  where,  as  the  story  goes,  a  high-stepping 
colonel,  who  acted  as  master  of  the  ceremonies,  threw  open  the 
door,  and  stepped  forward  to  announce  the  President,  of  the 
United  States  so  much  after  the  manner  of  a  flapping  cock 
that  Washington  was  quite  disconcerted  and  reproved  him  se 
verely  after  the  guests  had  departed.^  Washington's  levees 

*  See  John  Adams's  Diary,  1789. 
f  10  Washington's  Writings,  1789. 

J  See  Jefferson's  Anas.  Jefferson  takes  the  story  at  second-hand,  and 
records  it  with  a,  disposition  to  ridicule  levees  altogether. 


1789.  LEVEES   AND   FRIDAY   PARTIES.  115 

were  usually  conducted  after  this  fashion  :  The  guests  assem 
bled  before  three  o'clock  in  the  large  parlor  or  dining-room 
prepared  for  them,  and,  standing,  awaited  the  President. 
Precisely  on  the  hour  the  door  of  the  anteroom  opened  and 
Washington  appeared,  accompanied  usually  by  secretaries 
or  other  high  officials.  His  usual  dress  on  these  occasions 
consisted  of  a  suit  of  black  velvet,  a  pearl-colored  waistcoat, 
keee  and  shoe  buckles  of  silver,  dark  silk  stockings,  and  yellow 
gloves  ;  upon  his  left  side  he  wore  a  dress  sword,  a  cocked  hat 
was  under  his  arm,  his  hair  was  powdered.  Thus  attired,  he 
would  walk  solemnly  about  the  room,  and  being  introduced  to 
each  of  the  company  in  turn,  exchange  a  few  words  of  brief 
conversation  and  then  pass  on.  The  agony  of  dislocation  to 
which  his  later  successors  submit  he  seldom  risked.  After  the 
first  formalities  there  was  a  brief  thaw,  and  the  company  had 
opportunity  to  gather  about  him  in  a  ring  or  indulge  in  social 
intercourse  with  one  another.  In  conversation  Washington 
was  unaffected,  and  talked  more  as  a  wide  observer  than  a  man 
of  books  ;  but  he  allowed  no  familiarity  and  simply  bowed  his 
salutations.  At  the  close  of  the  hour  his  retirement  to  his 
anteroom  was  a  signal  that  the  parade  was  dismissed. 

The  President's  wife,  setting  out  from  Mount  Vernon  sev 
eral  weeks  later  than  her  husband,  received  distinguished 
marks  of  honor  on  her  way  to  New  York,  and  upon  her  arri 
val  the  lighter  frivolities  of  the  republican  court  began.  A 
Virginia  belle  in  youth,  her  husband's  constant  companion  at 
army  headquarters,  she  well  adorqed  even  in  our  most  fash 
ionable  cities  the  pre-eminent  rank  accorded  her,  and  no  jeal 
ous  democracy  ever  deprived  her  of  that  singular  title,  "  Lady 
Washington,"  which  fashion  hastened  to  confer.  At  her  Fri 
day  evening  entertainments  were  to  be  seen  all  the  beauty, 
talent,  and  social  distinction  the  little  capital  could  bring  to 
gether.  Witty  Abigail  Adams,  the  Vice- President's  wife; 
the  delicate-featured  Mrs.  Jay;  one  of  Jefferson's  two  daugh 
ters,  a  lustrous  beauty;  Secretary  Knox  and  his  wife,  a  cor 
pulent  pair  moving  like  a  yoke  of  oxen,  but  social  favorites 
and  most  hospitable;  members  of  Congress;  all  the  head  dig 
nitaries  of  city,  State,  and  nation  ;  the  French,  Spanish,  and 
Dutch  ministers,  who  constituted  for  the  present  the  sole  dip- 


116  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

lomatic  corps;  an  elegant  throng  of  belles  with  hair  dressed 
high  on  their  heads,  rustling  in  gowns  of  satin  and  taffeta,  and 
accosted  by  beaux  bepowdered  and  decked  out  as  brilliantly 
as  beetles.  Those  were  occasions  when  even  the  Father  of  his 
Country  would  unbend  and  carry  on  a  cheerful  banter  with 
the  ladies,  the  liveliest  of  whom  were  not  a  little  ambitious  of 
the  rare  distinction  of  making  the  great  man  smile. 

With  such  hospitalities  for  society  at  large,  Washington  set 
certain  hours  of  the  day  for  giving  audience  to  callers  on  busi 
ness.  In  general,  the  line  of  conduct  he  sought  to  adopt  was 
such  as  might  best  combine  the  public  advantage  with  his 
private  convenience.  Invitations  were  sent  out  for  Presiden 
tial  entertainments,  and  while  promiscuous  company  was 
avoided  on  the  one  hand,  neither  on  the  other  would  he  mimic 
the  seclusion  of  a  monarch.  His  private  life  he  regulated  to 
please  himself;  about  nine  in  the  evening  he  commonly  retired 
to  his  private  apartment,  and  Sundays  were  set  apart  for  rest 
and  religious  devotions.  In  special  instances  the  President 
accepted  social  invitations.  Thus  during  the  present  spring  he 
attended  a  ball  at  the  French  minister's,  a  diplomatic  affair. 
He  was  also  present  at  one  arranged  by  the  managers  of  the 
city  assemblies  in  honor  of  his  inauguration,  on  which  latter 
occasion  he  danced  in  a  cotillon  and  minuet.  At  this  inau 
guration  ball,  given  before  the  President's  wife  had  arrived, 
fans  imported  expressly  from  Paris  were  distributed  to  the 
company,  each  having  a  medallion  likeness  of  Washington ;  a 
circumstance  trivial  enough,  yet  like  other  marks  of  obeisance 
shown  at  social  parties  graced  by  his  presence,  which  savored 
of  homage  to  the  man  rather  than  the  office,  attracting  some 
unfavorable  comment  from  uneasy  observers.* 

Such  was  the  course  of  the  President's  official  life  while  the 
government  tarried  at  New  York.  But  the  first  season's  fes 
tivities  closed  long  before  Congress  adjourned,  for  Washington 
became  alarmingly  ill  with  anthrax  early  in  July,  so  that  a 
chain  had  to  be  extended  across  the  street  to  prevent  carriages 
from  passing  his  door.f  In  the  course  of  this  sickness,  from 

*  See  10  Washington's  Writings   (1789);  5  Irving's  Washington; 
Griswold's  Republican  Court, 
t  N.  Y.  (Jazette. 


1789.  TOURS   IX    RECESS.  117 

which  he  rallied  but  slowly,  he  suffered  bereavement  in  the 
loss  of  his  aged  mother. 

Partly  to  recuperate  his  strength,  but  more  still  in  pursu 
ance  of  a  definite  plan  he  had  formed  of  making  recess  tours 
through  the  States  in  order  to  knit  the  new  union  more  closely 
and  acquaint  himself  better  with  the  wishes  and  present  con 
dition  of  his  fellow-citizens,  Washington  set  out  in  the  mid- 
autumn  of  1789  upon  a  journey  through  the  Eastern  States, 
avoiding  Rhode  Island.  His  route  lay  through 
Central  Connecticut,  thence  over  the  Worcester 
turnpike  to  Boston,  where  he  remained  for  a  week,  and  after 
wards  as  far  north  as  Portsmouth  by  way  of  Lynn  and  Salem. 
Returning  to  Hartford  by  a  middle  route  he  remained  there 
several  days  to  rest,  and  finally  reached  New  York  once  more 
in  abundant  season  to  prepare  for  the  reassembling  of  Con 
gress.  Popular  enthusiasm  was  full  and  spontaneous  wherever 
he  went.  There  were  cheering  crowds,  cavalcades,  proces 
sions,  State  and  civic  feasts  all  the  way.  Salem  gave  a  ball, 
Portsmouth  a  harbor  excursion  ;  at  Hartford  he  went  over 
the  manufactories,  and  at  Cambridge  saw  the  great  elm  under 
which  he  first  drew  sword  to  take  command  of  the  patriot 
army.  Old  Boston,  which  had  not  seen  him  since  he  deliv 
ered  the  town  from  British  occupation,  poured  out  its  hospi 
talities,  and  on  his  arrival  a  trade  procession  with  banners 
appeared,  its  ranks  opened  from  Roxbury  line  to  the  old 
State  House.  Washington  returned  in  renewed  health,  highly 
pleased  with  his  tour,  and  astonished  both  at  the  marvellous 
growth  of  commerce  and  manufactures  in  New  England  and 
the  general  contentment  of  its  inhabitants  with  the  new  gov 
ernment.*  Rhode  Island's  accession  furnished  rea 
son  for  visiting  that  State  at  the  following  recess, 
and  after  the  final  adjournment  of  the  first  Congress  Wash 
ington  took  a  three  months'  tour  of  the  Southern 
States.  This  fondness  for  varying  sedentary  work 
by  extensive  journeys  has  always  been  characteristic  of  mili 
tary  rulers  habituated  to  the  saddle,  and  the  first  President 

*  10  Washington's  Writings;  Griswold's  Kepublican  Court;  5   Ir- 
ving'n  Washington  ;  Boston  Centinel. 


118  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

found  ample  opportunity  of  gratifying  his  personal  wishes  in 
this  respect,  since  the  public  business  during  the  legislative 
intermission  could  suffer  little  by  his  absence.  There  were 
public  demonstrations  on  the  road  even  when  he  made  his  ex 
cursions  of  lesser  note  between  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  was 
fond  of  passing  the  recess  on  his  farm,  and  the  Federal  cap 
ital. 

All  this  courtly  etiquette  and  costly  demonstration,  however, 
invoked  comment  and  fostered  the  germination  of  new  polit 
ical  parties.  Those  out  of  power  and  influence  are  always 
hard  to  please.  But  even  of  those  who  were  content  with  the 
lot  of  private  citizen  a  large  fraction  had  in  this  instance  con 
ceded  Federal  enlargement  reluctantly.  Virginians,  the  per 
sonal  friends  of  Washington,  betrayed  sensitiveness  at  once 
as  to  a  sort  of  divinity  which,  according  to  exaggerated  re 
port,  had  begun  to  hedge  him  in.  To  a  jealous  democracy 
the  levee,  the  semi-military  processions,  various  marks  of 
deference  shown  the  President  and  his  wife  as  to  members  of 
some  royal  family,  were  symptoms  of  a  disposition  among 
suspected  men  of  high  station  to  introduce  lineal  aristocracy 
into  America  and  a  chief  magistracy  for  life.  Many,  doubt 
less,  of  those  who  helped  swell  the  universal  shout  cherished 
such  misgivings,  though  Clinton  and  plain  Samuel  Adams 
had  themselves  played  conspicuous  parts  at  such  pageants. 

One  must  admit  that  the  venerating  applause  at  this  period 
of  "  the  man  who  united  all  hearts"  had  a  modicum  of  fool 
ish  adulation.  The  tributes  paid  him  in  his  day  were  quite 
often  dictated  by  bad  prosers  and  worse  poets.  A  college  ac 
quaintance  with  Latin  textbooks  or  a  decent  familiarity  with 
the  graces  of  Addison  and  Pope,  inspired  dullards  with  a  de 
sire  to  ooze  out  in  essays  or  odes  to  Columbia  and  Columbia's 
favorite  son,  which  appeared  in  the  newspapers.  Allegory 
ran  wild,  while  commonplace  metaphors  and  tropes,  like  the 
fife  and  drum  airs,  graced  every  holiday.  Upon  its  first  recur 
rence  after  the  inauguration,  Washington's  birthday  was  cele 
brated  in  leading  towns  with  public  marks  of  honor;  a  cus 
tom  the  Cincinnati  of  New  York  helped  institute  and  which 
has  never  since  fallen  into  disuse,  though  to  no  other  Ameri 
can's  lot"  has  this  semi-monarchical  distinction  fallen.  Birth- 


1789.  HOMAGE   TO   WASHINGTON.  119 

day  and  procession  odes  became  the  favorite  doggerel  of  the 
day,  many  of  them  having  that  smack  of  Tate  and  Brady, 
which  bespoke  a  psalm-singing  age.  One  song  began  : 

"  Arrayed  in  glory  bright 
Columbia's  saviour  comes." 

Another  proceeded  in  like  strain  : 

"  His  glory  shines  beyond  the  skies, 
From  Heaven  proceeds." 

With  stanzas  like  these  set  to  appropriate  music  a  choir  would 
stand  before  the  President  when  he  appeared  upon  a  public 
tour,  and  launch  the  loud  psean  at  a  face  which  relaxed  noth 
ing  of  its  habitual  expression  of  calm  serenity. 

This  was  an  age  over  which  the  royal  atmosphere  still  hung, 
though  Washington  was  praised  as  one  whose  career  put  kings 
and  tyrants  to  the  blush.  Such  ascriptions  were  heard  as, 
"  Long  live  George  Washington  !"  or  "  God  bless  your  reign  !" 
Religious,  municipal,  and  social  bodies  preferred  continually 
their  addresses  of  congratulation  for  a  gracious  acknowledg 
ment.  All  were  obsequious.  Indeed,  the  plain  words  with 
which  the  Quaker  selectman  of  Salem  welcomed  the  President 
to  that  town  contrasted  very  strongly  with  the  other  speeches 
made  upon  his  Eastern  tour.*  Washington's  reverence  for 
religion  unduly  stimulated  the  narration  of  apocryphal  anec 
dotes  for  the  benefit  of  the  young.  The  administration  press 
moreover  inclined  to  servile  flattery;  and  though  it  were  only 
his  "  black  Sam's  "  advertisement  for  provisions  to  supply  the 
Presidential  table,  the  disposition  was  irresistible  to  tack  a 
moral  like  that  of  ^Esop's  fables  upon  everything  that  Wash 
ington  did  or  indirectly  sanctioned. 

Much  of  this  extravagance  Washington  permitted  from  real 

*  There  was  much  merriment  in  the  public  prints  over  the  simple 
eloquence  of  this  Mr.  Northey,  though  it  evidently  touched  the  right 
chord:  "  Friend  Washington,  we  are  glad  to  see  thee,  and  in  behalf  of 
the  inhabitants  bid  thee  a  hearty  welcome  to  Salem."  See  Boston  Cen- 
tinel,  November  7th,  1789. 


120  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

appreciation  of  a  sincere  personal  devotion  however  awk 
wardly  expressed,  but  far  more  because  he  could  not  possibly 
avoid  it.  To  every  breath  of  censure  he  was  so  keenly  sensi 
tive  that  he  sought  privately  to  justify  himself  to  friends  who 
censured  these  stately  honors ;  hinting  at  what  was  doubtless 
true,  that  he  often  parried  the  efforts  of  others  to  make  them 
statelier  still.  But  beyond  this  we  must  accept  Washington 
as  a  representative  man  of  his  times,  not  free  from  the  preva 
lent  notions  of  official  dignity,  nor  given  to  theorizing  upon 
the  ideal  government  where  all  are  rulers ;  a  man,  moreover, 
who  estimated  justly  his  own  historical  position  and  the  im 
measurable  services  he  had  rendered.  An  American  to  the 
core,  a  sincere  patriot,  believing  in  the  future  grandeur  of  the 
republic,  the  only  reward  from  his  fellow-countrymen  to  which 
he  attached  any  personal  value  whatever  was  their  gratitude, 
and  upon  this  he  would  throw  himself  to  enjoy  its  buoying 
influence  like  a  bold  swimmer  who  dashes  into  the  sea.  Ap 
parently  the  love  of  approbation  grew  upon  him  with  years, 
but  through  life  he  was  too  well  balanced  in  temperament  to 
crave  it  inordinately  and  too  self-respecting  to  court  it. 

Those  who  view  Washington  through  the  refractive  medium 
of  his  own  age  are  apt  either  to  exaggerate  or  belittle  his  char 
acter,  according  to  their  susceptibleness.  To  a  generation  of 
image-breakers  heedless  of  moral  restraints,  the  skeptical  dis 
position  must  be  to  take  such  a  character  to  pieces  and  recon 
struct  from  the  fragments,  if  possible,  a  man  with  as  little  real 
reverence  as  one  of  themselves,  and  a  hypocrite  besides.  No 
such  reconstruction  is  possible  here  while  truth  remains  a 
jewel ;  for  Washington  was  as  genuine  a  man  as  ever  came 
from  his  Maker's  hand.  His  whole  life  is  an  open  book  to  his 
countrymen,  wherein  the  acts  and  pursuits  of  his  mature  years 
are  very  fully  recorded.  Constantly  in  contact  with  the  pub 
lic  for  twenty-five  years,  seen  Ipjjr  natives  and  foreigners,  the 
memorable  incidents  of  his  life  during  this  period  are  pre 
served  as  well  as  his  private  impressions.  His  letters  have 
been  explored  and  even  spurious  ones  imputed  to  him.  It  is 
strangely  significant  that  military  and  political  rivals  who 
plotted  against  him  unsuccessfully,  those  who  fought  with  him 
and  those  he  conquered,  have  left  on  record  one  and  the  same 


1789.  CHARACTER   OF   WASHINGTON.  12  L 

tribute  to  his  greatness  of  soul.  With  possibly  the  exception 
of  downright  John  Adams,  whose  ardent  but  jealous  ambition 
was  vexed  at  having  to  encounter  for  his  superior  the  silent 
soldier  he  had  brought  forward  in  '75  to  command  the  army, 
no  great  contemporary  who  survived  Washington  ever  de 
tracted  from  his  fame.  On  the  contrary,  Jefferson,  who  had 
a  keen  eye  for  faults,  and  wrho,  of  all  Washington's  intimates, 
borrowed  least  from  his  lustre,  has  left  one  of  the  most  grace 
ful  and  doubtless  one  of  the  most  discriminating  of  tributes 
to  his  memory  ever  penned.  /  Out  from  these  clouds  of  incense 
which  gather  now  and  then  to  obscure  our  vision  emerges  al 
ways  the  same  Washington,  lofty,  symmetrical,  eternal,  like  a 
mountain  peak  which  is  seen  piercing  the  morning  mists. 

Let  us  take,  if  we  can,  the  proportions  of  this  noble  char 
acter  as  it  stands  out  nakedly  against  a  clear  sky.  We  are 
not  in  the  first  place  to  ascribe  to  Washington  intellectual  en 
dowments  of  the  highest  order.  In  quickness,  fertility  of  re 
sources,  and  freshness  of  thought,  he  was  surpassed  by  two 
certainly  of  his  first  cabinet  advisers  and  the  Vice-President 
besides.  Nor  was  he  a  scholar,  a  well-read  man,  so  much  as 
one  of  a  methodical  turn  and  observant  mind,  whose  travel 
and  personal  experience  with  men  and  affairs  rendered  him 
the  best  interpreter  of  the  America  of  his  times.  The  organ 
izing  faculty,  which  in  him  was  splendidly  developed,  and 
thoroughly  systematic  habits  aided  a  retentive  mind  of  large 
natural  powers;  adding  to  which  a  patient,  conscientious, 
sleepless  devotion  to  whatever  undertaking  was  in  hand,  and 
unfailing  patriotism,  \ve  have  a  man  who  was  born  to  execute, 
to  humble  his  king,  to  make  and  keep  America  free. 

But  Washington's  best  mental  gift  was  a  sound  and  discrim 
inating  judgment.  The  balance  of  his  mental  and  moral 
powers  was  truly  superb.  Neither  passion  nor  interest  could 
blind  him  when  it  came  to  deliberating  between  men  or  meth 
ods.  He  first  sought  the  best  advice  he  could  gain  from  vari 
ous  sources,  next  he  weighed  it  well,  and  finally,  after  making 
his  choice,  adhered  consistently  to  both  course  and  conclusion. 
Free,  however,  from  that  pride  of  origination  which  keeps  so 
many  great  intellects  obstinate  beyond  the  conviction  of  error, 
he  took  his  bearings  anew  as  prudence  might  dictate,  and  with 
VOL.  i. — 11 


122  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

a  steady  hand  on  the  helm  watched  constantly  the  horizon. 
He  was  thus  in  civil  affairs  a  splendid  practical  administrator, 
though  necessarily  conservative  and  a  thorn  to  party  leaders; 
not  infallible,  yet  never  far  astray  as  concerned  present  action. 
As  a  military  leader  there  was  danger  that  one  so  deliberative 
might  on  some  unexpected  turn  be  disconcerted  by  the  foe  and 
outgeueralled,  and  so  it  had  happened  more  than  once ;  but 
for  a  protracted  campaign  he  stood  well  the  test,  and  where 
he  advanced  and  had  prepared  the  surprise  he  came  out  con 
queror. 

Washington's  moral  and  religious  traits  of  character  have 
been  constantly  eulogized.  That  he  was  a  true  Christian  can 
not  be  doubted,  but  what  most  strikingly  impresses  is  that  he 
was  a  Christian  who  lived  by  rule  rather  than  impulse.  The 
practice  was  by  no  means  uncommon  for  persons  in  his  day  to 
frame  a  series  of  maxims  which  should  regulate  their  daily 
behavior,  and  secrete  them  in  some  private  place ;  but  those 
which  Washington  is  known  to  have  prepared  for  himself  were 
neither  obtrusively  pious  on  the  one  hand,  nor  on  the  other 
framed  after  that  common  Chesterfield  pattern  which  would 
catalogue  smirks  and  bows  among  the  virtues  ;  they  were  so 
ber,  temperate,  just,  and  manly.  That  same  reflective  dispo 
sition  which  Washington  displayed  in  public  affairs  pervaded 
his  whole  inner  life.  His  self-examination  in  lonely  hours 
must  have  been  scrutinizing  and  severe. 

Washington  most  probably  had  personal  ambition.  His 
career  indicates  this,  and  particularly  the  wealthy  marriage 
which  greatly  promoted  his  advancement.  But  his  ambition 
was  always  of  that  elevated  kind  which  makes  one  the 
willing  instrument  for  accomplishing  beneficent  ends.  And 
here  the  rare  temperance  of  Washington,  the  just  equilibrium 
to  maintain  which  was  a  life-long  duty,  stood  him  in  good 
stead,  for  he  remained  a  steadfast  patriot  when  tempted  to 
make  himself  a  monarch.  Never  violent  or  vindictive  in  ac 
tion,  he  stands  that  rarest  of  the  world's  military  heroes — 
lord  of  himself.  Yet  Washington  was  not  free  from  the  com 
mon  infirmities,  but  on  the  contrary  a  man  of  naturally  fierce 
passions;  and  there  were  moments  of  provocation,  even  in  this 
tranquil  autumn  of  his  life,  when  he  would  give  way  to  a  vio- 


1789.  CHARACTER   OF   WASH^tfT&SrJ  T 

lent  outburst  of  language  such  as 


£ 


£  s  j  r  y 

wer  and  ' 


tremble.     But  his  wrath  was  soon  spent  ; 

himself;  and  when  it  came  to  the  decision  justice  inflexible 

had  regained  her  seat. 

It  may  well  excite  surprise  that  one  in  outer  life  so  unemo 
tional,  so  reserved  of  manner,  so  cold  almost  to  haughtiness, 
should  in  a  republic  have  inspired  so  much  popular  enthusi 
asm  as  unquestionably  did  this  man.  Americans  of  our  times 
catch  his  radiance  like  that  of  some  incandescent  light  which 
shines  without  emitting  heat  ;  but  the  Americans  of  a  century 
ago  were  perhaps  more  susceptible  to  heroic  impressions,  and 
regarded  birth  and  high-breeding  differently.  Two  courses  lie 
open  to  popular  preferment;  one  by  exhibiting  captivating 
manners  and  a  desire  to  conciliate  every  one  ;  the  other  by 
performing  well  the  task  that  lies  nearest  home  and  leaving 
the  multitude  to  gain  a  better  acquaintance.  The  former  is 
preferred  by  small  men  who  seek  official  lustre  from  small  oc 
casions,  but  the  few  truly  great  and  well-deserving  who  have 
gained  distinction  when  great  occasion  has  discovered  and 
tested  them,  sink  deepest  in  the  popular  heart  after  they  once 
enter;  they  are  the  stronger  for  their  self-poise,  and  praised 
for  that  which  places  them  in  contrast  with  other  men  and 
seems  not  contemptible.  Washington,  if  not  cordial,  lively, 
or  sociable,  was  at  all  events  courteous,  considerate,  and  just 
in  his  dealings.  That  desolation  of  greatness,  which  so  dis 
tinguishes  him  aboveother  Americans,  forbade  favoritism,  and 
those  under  him  became  emulous  of  promotion  by  merit. 

Socially  speaking,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  Washington 
had  a  private  life.  He  cherished  no  bosom  friends,  though  in 
teresting  himself  in  young  people;  and  among  leading  men 
of  his  day  those  who  won  his  heart  the  closest  were  Hamilton 
and  the  impulsive  Lafayette.  Yet  he  had  no  convivial  Ben- 
tinck  like  William  of  Orange,  whom  in  many  points  he.  re 
sembled  ;  and  probably  no  person  living  partook  freely  of  his 
confidence.  He  married  when  past  the  season  of  impetuous 
youth  ;  he  had  no  child  of  his  own,  bitt  to  the  offspring  of  his 
wife  by  her  former  marriage  he  was  like  an  own  parent,  though 
in  domestic  life  he  was  constant  rather  than  demonstrative. 
Close  as  were  his  official  relations  with  other  public  men  he 


124  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

repelled  familiarity ;  and  when  one  by  no  means  unconspicuous* 
came  up  and  saluted  him  in  a  jocular  manner  with  a  slap  on 
the  shoulder,  Washington  turned  upon  him  with  a  look  that 
withered  him  into  silence. 

But  carefully  as  he  exacted  the  respect  which  he  felt  others 
owed  him,  he  was  equally  scrupulous  in  rendering  to  each  his 
due  in  return.  The  just  balance  was  the  principle  he  applied 
to  all  actions,  public  or  private,  high  or  low,  to  hospitality,  to 
deeds  of  charity,  and  to  the  economies  alike  of  a  nation  or  his 
own  household.f 

It  appears  certain  that  Washington  had  neither  wit  nor  a 
salty  humor.  He  conversed  sensibly  and  well  with  the  guest 
at  table,  but  a  witty  sally  disturbed  him,  and  to  anything  like 
the  thrust  of  ridicule  he  was  keenly  sensitive.  No  bon  mot  is 
known  to  have  escaped  his  lips.  Young  ladies  pleased  him 
with  their  vivacity,  and  in  one  or  two  burlesque  scenes  on  his 
plantation,  which  cannot  be  funnily  described,  he  astonished 
the  household  by  breaking  out  into  a  long  and  hearty  laugh. 
Otherwise  his  face,  unless  he  was  angry,  wore  that  calm  and 
placid  expression  of  repose  with  which  his  pictures  make  us 
so  familiar.  And  yet  a  dry,  almost  sardonic  sense  of  humor 
peeps  out  of  his  correspondence  in  by-places,  of  a  quality  still 

*  G.  Morris.  See  Van  Buren's  Political  Parties,  p.  106,  where  this 
is  narrated  as  an  incident  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of  1787. 

f  Richard  Parkinson  tells  a  number  of  racy  anecdotes  which  he 
probably  picked  up  among  Washington's  overseers  and  tenants  about 
Mount  Vernon  in  1798-9,  as  he  had  excellent  opportunity  of  doing. 
These  represent  that  Washington  was  a  close  manager  on  his  estate, 
weighing  and  measuring  whatever  came  or  was  to  be  distributed  ;  get 
ting  a  slight  overcharge  refunded  where  a  plasterer  who  worked  by  the 
square  yard  proved  to  have  made  his  account  too  large ;  and  compelling 
a  tenant  to  go  to  Alexandria  and  procure  change  rather  than  receipt  for 
the  rent,  of  which  a  small  fraction  was  wanting.  On  the  other  hand, 
that  he  returned  by  his  ferryman  a  slight  excess  of  toll  which  a  wealthy 
gentleman  paid  for  being  taken  across  the  river ;  also  that  he  mounted 
his  horse  and  rode  good-naturedly  to  the  shop  of  the  distant  shoemaker 
who  had  declined  a  reques^to  come  to  Mount  Vernon  and  measure  him, 
saying  Ms  was  not  his  custom.  See  II.  Parkinson's  Tour  in  America. 
With  due  margin  for  idle  gossip  the  trait  illustrated  is  one  with  which 
Washington's  private  correspondence  and  the  anecdotes  in  Griswold's 
"Republican  Court  leave  us  not  unfamiliar. 


1789.  WASHINGTON'S  CHARACTER.  125 

better  illustrated  perhaps  by  the  authenticated  instance  where 
he  turned  sharply  upon  a  little  boy  who  was  running  after  him 
from  his  tailor's  admiringly  through  a  retired  street  of  Phila 
delphia,  and  taking  off  his  hat  made  him  a  profound  saluta 
tion.*  Unless  the  ludicrous  aspect  of  the  curiosity  lie  every 
where  excited  sometimes  amused  the  great  man  he  cannot  have 
been  human. 

Washington's  peculiar  temperament  and  habits  are  largely 
explained  by  reference  to  his  training  and  personal  experience. 
Born  of  a  good  Virginian  family,  he  was  left  fatherless  at  an 
early  age,  with  the  cares  of  a  large  household,  only  moderately 
provided  for,  devolving  much  upon  him  as  the  most  trusted 
son  of  a  widowed  mother.  His  education  was  received  at 
home  under  her  refining  influence.  By  profession  a  surveyor, 
before  reaching  majority  his  duties  took  him  into  unsettled 
regions  on  long  expeditions,  remote  from  congenial  society; 
then  "serving  under  Braddock  his  military  experience  began 
among  the  frontier  Indians.  An  early  love  disappointment 
saddened  a  heart  whose  hidden  depths  must  have  been  stirred 
profoundly.  Becoming  an  independent  and  wealthy  planter, 
rising  to  social  eminence,  the  Revolution  called  him  forth  to 
take  the  lead  of  the  American  armies,  in  which  post  he  con 
tinued  through  his  prime,  issuing  orders  and  maturing  plans 
which  required  long  deliberation  and  the  utmost  secrecy.  And 
thus  had  a  shy,  meditative,  proud-spirited  youth  grown  into  a 
serious,  reticent,  well-balanced  man,  whose  chief  relaxation 
consisted  in  being  publicly  entertained  and  entertaining. 

Long  use  of  the  pen  and  contact  with  the  best  thinkers  in 
America  trained  Washington  into  a  ready  writer,  capable  of 
expressing  himself  in  a  clear,  terse,  and  impressive  style,  im 
perfect  as  had  been  his  education.  But  he  hud  no  pride  of 
authorship,  and  with  the  incessant  official  demands  made  upon 
him  for  civil  and  military  papers,  he  had  fallen  into  the  course 
of  permitting  others  to  draft  documents  for  his  signature. 
Yet  in  the  component  of  those  voluminous  writings  which  pass 


*  This  hoy  was  the  Quaker,  Isaac  T.  Hopper.  The  incident,  which 
occurred  not  remotely  from  the  present  period,  is  well  avouched  by  Hop 
per's  own  statement.  See  Hopper's  llecollections. 


126  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

current  as  his  own,  whatever  pure  gold  others  may  have  sup 
plied,  the  test  and  the  stamp  of  the  coinage  is  his. 

Of  Washington's  physical  courage  there  can  be  no  shadow 
of  a  doubt ;  he  gave  orders  calmly  while  bullets  whizzed  about 
him  ;  he  was  every  inch  a  soldier.  But  his  moral  courage  is 
not  to  be  appreciated  without  considering  that  he  protected 
his  military  honor  in  an  age  of  duels  without  ever  sending  or 
provoking  a  challenge.  An  open  enemy  quailed  before  his 
eye  and  the  cold,  rebuking  dignity  into  which  he  froze  when 
offended,  while  treacherous  friends  were  most  often  disarmed 
by  his  genuine  magnanimity. 

On  the  whole  it  is  the  predominance  of  the  moral  over  the 
mental  and  physical  qualities,  or  rather  their  admirable  union, 
that  most  impresses  us.  For  strategic  skill,  consummate  policy, 
profoundness  of  views,  or  even  originality,  Washington  is  not 
pre-eminent  among  the  world's  heroes,  although,  as  one  has 
well  remarked,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  he  saw  more  clearly 
than  any  other  man  of  his  times.  But  as  the  man  of  safe 
action,  as  thefittest  creation  of  a  revolutionary  age,  as  the  embod 
iment  of  whatever  was  grandest  in  a  grand  cause,  as  the  filial 
^Eueas  who  bore  America  on'  his  shoulders,  from  darkness  to 
light,  his  name  is  imperishable. 

At  the  period  of  this  first  Congress  Washington,  though 
past  the  meridian  of  life,  touched  the  zenith  of  his  personal 
popularity.  Abroad,  England,  though  sullen,  owned  his  great 
ness,  and  in  France,  where,  under  Lafayette's  guidance,  the 
republican  cause  was  making  hopeful  progress,  he  among 
Americans  was  revered  as  second  only  to  Franklin.  At  home 
the  union  of  States  was  becoming  closely  compacted ;  party 
spirit  burned  but  feebly ;  the  whole  people  looked  to  him  for 
guidance.  His  military  greatness  had  been  vindicated  by 
success,  and  a  new  success  surely  awaited  the  civil  experiment 
which  he  was  now  inaugurating. 

The  new  year  opened  auspiciously.     Business  had  prospered 

and  still  better  times  were  promised.     Our  commerce, 

though  small,  was  increasing.    So  plentiful  had  been  the 

harvest  that  the  saying  was,  Anti-Federalism  and  the  Hessian 

fly  had  vanished  together.     Ourgrain  was  in  great  demand,  and 


1790.  RISING   PROSPERITY    OF   THE   UNIOX.  127 

during  the  midsummer  it  was  estimated  that  as  many  as  three 
hundred  wagons  in  a  single  day  passed  Saratoga  for  the  Lakes 
and  Canada  laden  with  corn.  The  Western  territory  was  fast 
coming  into  consequence ;  manufacturers  were  planning  to 
enlarge  their  facilities  ;  there  had  been  a  steady  sale  of  spin 
ning-wheel  irons,  and  in  Boston  alone  a  single  firm  manufac 
tured  within  eleven  months  more  than  60,000  pair  of  woollen 
and  cotton  cards.* 

When  Congress  assembled  at  its  second  session,  the  President 
called  attention  in  his  message  to  this  favorable  4_g 
posture  of  public  affairs,  the  increasing  good-will  of 
the  people,  and  the  rising  respectability  of  the  United  States 
as  a  nation.  Of  all  this  speedy  proof  was  afforded  by  the  ac 
cession  of  the  two  truant  States,  North  Carolina  and  Rhode 
Island.  Their  helpless  plight  outside  of  the  Union  had  be 
come  so  manifest  that  Congress  at  its  first  session  consented  to 
relieve  the  vessels  of  these  States  for  a  limited  period  from 
the  burden  of  a  foreign  tonnage  duty.  This  forbearance  of 
the  Federal  government,  with  the  persuasion  of  her  own 
neighbors,  had  already  secured  North  Carolina,  whose  acces 
sion  the  public  prints  joyfully  announced  by  a  cut  of  the  con 
stitutional  temple  supported  upon  twelve  pillars,  while  the 
thirteenth  and  outer  one  was  toppling  over.f 

Hints  and  encouragement  were  however  wasted  for  a  time 
longer  upon  Rhode  Island,  who  played  the  stubborn  child 
long  after  the  patience  of  her  New  England  sisters  was  ex 
hausted.  J  Her  paper  money  had  no  credit  in  Massachusetts, 
and  so  bitterly  did  her  own  Federalists  detest  its  circulation 
that  the  Rhode  Island  Cincinnati  publicly  expelled  a  member 
for  tendering  State  currency  in  satisfaction  of  a  creditor's  de 
mand,  as  he  had  the  legal  right  to  do.  Early  in  the  present 
year  a  convention  was  called  by  the  legislature  of  the  State 


*  N.  Y.  Gazette,  Boston  Centinel,  and  other  current  newspapers,  1789. 

f  North  Carolina  ratified  with  amendments,  November  21st,  1789,  by 
193  to  75. 

J  When  the  President  was  at  Worcester  five  cannon  were  fired  on 
the  green  for  the  New  England  States ;  three  for  the  States  already  in 
the  Union,  one  for  the  expectant  Vermont,  and  one  more  for  "  Little 
Bhody,"  as  a  call  for  her  to  be  ready  before  it  should  be  too  late. 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

to  consider  the  Federal  Constitution ;  Governor  Collins  giv 
ing  the  casting  vote  in  the  upper  house,  and  asking  the  fur 
ther  indulgence  of  Congress  until  it  could  meet.  But  Col- 
lins's  action  cost  him  his  place,  for  when  spring  came  the 
Anti-Federalists  dropped  him  and  chose  Arthur  Fenuer  in  his 
stead  ;  while  in  the  convention  which  met  meantime  at  Kings 
ton  their  party  carried  an  adjournment  from  March  to  the 
last  of  May.  In  the  United  States  Senate  a  bill  was  now 
promptly  passed  which  prohibited  all  commercial  intercourse 
with  Rhode  Island,  and  required  her  to  pay  her  quota  of  the 
Continental  debt.  Threatened  with  Federal  coercion  on  one 
hand  and  the  open  secession  of  Providence  and  Newport  on 
the  other,  the  Anti-Federalists  of  the  State  had  to  succumb, 
and  when  the  convention  reassembled,  May  24th,  at  Newport, 
as  appointed,  a  motion  for  further  adjournment  was  defeated, 

and  by  a  majority  of  two  ratification  was  carried; 

not,  however,  without  a  longer  list  of  proposed 
amendments  than  there  were  towns  in  the  State.  The  thir 
teenth  and  last  pillar  was  now  accepted  into  the  Federal  tem 
ple,  and  the  structure  stood  complete.  Congress  very  properly 
consigned  the  Rhode  Island  propositions,  as  it  had  those  of 
North  Carolina,  to  the  waste-basket;  but  at  the  summer  recess 
the  President  good-naturedly  made  an  excursion,  with  Clinton, 
Jefferson,  and  other  dignitaries,  to  Newport  and  Providence, 
where  the  party  was  hospitably  entertained,  Brown  University 
conferring  upon  Washington  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.* 
Another  proof  of  the  salutary  influence  the  new  Union  ex 
erted  appeared  in  new  State  constitutions  adopted  at  this  pe 
riod,  those  particularly  of  Georgia  and  Pennsylvania.  In 
Georgia  during  the  first  session  of  Congress  a  constitutional 
convention  had  met,  which  remodelled  the  fundamental  law  so 
as  to  secure  upon  adoption,  among  other  desirable-  changes,  the 
institution  of  a  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  for  the 
former  single  Assembly.  Pennsylvania  framed  and  established 
in  the  course  of  the  present  year  a  new  constitution,  which 
likewise  superseded  that  tumultuous  body  whose  only  good 
service  had  been  to  enable  Federalism  to  make  quick  work 

*  See  Gazette,  Centinel,  and  other  papers  of  the  day. 


1790.  MEASURES   OF   THE   SECOND   SESSION.  129 

with  ratification,  by  a  legislature  consisting  of  two  houses,  the 
more  numerous  to  be  chosen  for  one  year,  the  other  for  four 
years,  but  with  a  partial  rotation  annually.  In  place  of  the 
plural  executive  with  its  nominal  president  appeared  a  single 
magistrate,  to  be  chosen  by  the  people  for  a  term  of  three 
years.  In  the  fall  General  Miffliu  was  by  an  immense  ma 
jority  chosen  the  first  Governor  of  Pennsylvania.  South  Car 
olina  this  same  year  recast  its  peculiar  constitution  so  as  to 
conform  better  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  though  wealth,  not 
numbers,  still  ruled  in  the  councils.* 

This  second  session  of  Congress  was  long  and  interesting. 
By  a  joint  rule  March  4th  was  fixed  as  the  permanent  date 
for  commencing  the  Federal  year,  the  last  day  of  the  present 
Congress  being  set  at  March  3d.  Among  the  primary  meas 
ures  of  consequence  which  became  laws  were  these :  The  first 
census  act,  which  called  for  the  enumeration  of  inhabitants 
alone,  and  set  the  example  of  making  Federal  marshals  the 
gatherers  of  local  statistics  ;f  the  first  naturalization  act,  re 
quiring  only  a  brief  two  years'  residence  for  gaming  the  priv 
ileges  of  United  States  citizens  ;J  the  first  patent  act,  which 
granted  to  inventors  the  exclusive  right  of  their  discoveries 
for  fourteen  years,  and  gave  an  impulse  to  that  mechanical 
ingenuity  for  which  America  has  since  became  so  famous  ;§ 
the  first  copyright  act,  giving  to  authors  a  corresponding  priv 
ilege  with  certain  instances  of  extension. ||  Variations  of  term ' 
have  been  introduced  by  later  patent  and  copyright  as  well  as 
naturalization  acts,  and  the  patent  administration,  at  first 
given  to  a  board  of  department  heads,  and  soon  after  vested 
in  the  Secretary  of  State  alone,  required  at  length  the  sole 
attention  of  a  bureau  officer. 

An  act  for  defining  and  punishing  certain  crimes  against 
the  United  States  furnished  an  array  of  penalties  from  hang 
ing  down  to  fines  and  a  public  whipping;  a  milder  code  on 
the  whole  than  prevailed  generally  in  the  States,  where  de 
grading  punishments  were  still  so  popular;  that  in  a  neigh- 

*  See  current  newspapers  ;  4  llildreth's  History. 

f  Act  March  1st,  1790,  c.  2.  J  Act  March  2Gth,  17UO,  c.  3. 

%  Act  April  10th,  1790,  c.  7.  ||  Act  May  31st,  1790,  c.  15. 


130  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

boring  city  on  a  recent  occasion  of  bringing  out  the  petty 
culprits,  a  castigator,  too  soft-hearted  to  serve  out  his  strokes 
with  the  customary  vigor,  was  himself  lashed  off  the  platform 
by  the  sheriff,  who,  taking  the  whip  in  hand,  applied  it  over 
the  rogue's  shoulders  with  loud  smacks  of  justice  untempered 
by  mercy,  while  the  bystanders  applauded.* 

Secretary  Kuox  here  submitted  a  scheme  for  enrolling  the 
whole  militia  of  the  Union  by  legions,  and  requiring  military 
service  from  all  citizens  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
sixty.  But  Congress  took  no  action  upon  a  measure  of  such 
doubtful  expediency,  and  even  the  regular  military  establish 
ment  of  the  United  States  was  placed  upon  a  very  moderate 
footing.f 

Authentication  of  the  public  acts,  records,  and  judicial  pro 
ceedings  of  each  State  was  provided  for,  the  tariff  was  re 
vised,  and  a  more  stringent  collection  act  passed  to  meet  the 
wishes  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Secretary  Jefferson 
during  the  session  presented  a  learned  report  in  favor  of  ap 
plying  the  French  decimal  system  to  money,  weights,  and 
measures  alike,  but,  though  in  due  time  Congress  sanctioned 
the  metric  plan  so  far  as  concerned  the  Federal  coinage,  noth 
ing  further  was  attempted  in  that  direction.  Scientific  meth 
ods  make  slow  headway  against  popular  prejudice  and  the 
force  of  common  habits,  and  it  was  many  years  longer  before 
the  generality  of  citizens  could  be  persuaded  to  replace  their 
familiar  reckoning  by  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  by  that  of 
dollars  and  cents. 

But  the  sensation  of  this  second  session  was  the  financial 
report  of  the  new  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  its  most  con 
spicuous  debates  and  legislation  had  reference  to  plans  for  re 
storing  the  public  credit  which  that  report  invited.  By  one 
of  those  fantastic  combinations  not  strange  in  deliberative 
bodies,  it  came  about  before  the  summer  adjournment  that 
into  the  choice  of  a  Federal  funding  system  dovetailed  the 
permanent  selection  of  our  Federal  capital. 


*  Act  April  30th,  1790,  c.  9.     See  Ccntinel,  August  8th,  1789,  which 
mentions  the  incident  to  praise  the  sheriff'. 

f  Act  April  30th,  1790,  c.  10.     Annals  of  Congress,  1790,  supplement. 


1790.  HAMILTON'S  FINANCIAL  PLANS.  131 

By  common  consent  the  financial  situation  bad  been  left  for 
the  new  secretary  to  work  out  during  the  recess,  and  from  a 
mind  so  clear  and  comprehensive  as  Hamilton's  something  re 
markable  was  expected  on  the  reassembling  of  Congress.  The 
secretary  proved  not  unequal  to  the  occasion  ;  for  keeping  public 
curiosity  on  tiptoe  until  after  the  delivery  of  the  President's 
message,  he  notified  the  House  that  he  had,  agreeably  to  the 
resolve  of  the  previous  session,  prepared  a  plan  for  the  support 
of  public  credit  which  he  was  ready  to  present;  then  after  the 
House  had  concluded,  not  without  some  debate,  to  receive  the 
report  in  writing  instead  of  orally,  he  sent  in  at  once  the 
ablest  financial  document  of  the  day.* 

This  report,  in  the  first  place,  unmasked  fully  the  condition 
of  the  public  debt,  showing  it  to  consist  of  the  following  items : 
(1.)  The  foreign  debt  of  the  Union,  estimated  at  $11,710,378, 
inclusive  of  arrears  of  interest,  whose  accumulations  must 
have  exceeded  $1,500,000.  This  foreign  debt  was  partially 
due  to  private  parties  in  Holland,  slightly  to  Spain,  but  chiefly 
to  France,  a  creditor  of  whose  generous  forbearance  America 
had  fully  availed  herself.  (2.)  The  domestic  debt  of  the 
Union,  or  that  owed  to  creditors  at  home,  which,  because  of 
the  inability  of  the  Continenta^^^^ress  to  meet  accruing 
interest,  had  now  reached  the  enormous  amount  of  $42,414,- 
085  ;  a  sum  total  of  which  $2,000,000  represented  unliquidated 
claims,  including  the  outstanding  Federal  money.  (3.)  The 
State  debts  which  had  been  ia0arrflnn  the  common  cause  of 
Revolution,  already  partially  liquidated,  but  estimated  as  still 
amounting  to  something  like  $25,000,000,  principal  and  in 
terest. 

The  third  item  had  not  entered  into  the  Federal  calcula 
tion  at  all,  and  might  well  have  been  omitted.  But,  to  the 
astonishment  of  Congress  and  the  country,  Hamilton  not  only 
produced  these  estimates  from  his  budget,  but  proposed  with 
hardihood  that  Congress  should  assume  these  State  debts  in 
addition  to  the  Federal  burden,  and  thus  undertake  on  behalf 
of  a  nation  but  newly  organized  to  carry  what  for  the  times 
must  have  seemed  a  staggering  total — nearly  eighty  million 
dollars. 

*  3  Hamilton's  Works;  Annals  of  Congress,  1790. 


132  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

But  Hamilton  was  not  an  empiric  or  loose  reasoner.  Ac 
companying  his  proposition  was  a  statement  of  reasons  why 
a  funding  system  should  be  regarded  as  both  feasible  and  ex 
pedient.  The  public  debt,  he  argued,  ought  all  to  be  funded  ; 
it  is  both  just  and  politic  to  maintain  the  public  credit ;  and 
public  credit  can  only  be  maintained  by  punctual  performance 
and  good  faith  towards  the  public  creditor.  Hamilton  was 
silent,  however,  in  respect  of  a  further  consideration  which 
must  have  greatly  influenced  him  so  far  as  local  assumption 
was  concerned — the  additional  momentum  which  the  central 
government  would  likely  acquire  by  this  paternal  solicitude 
for  the  States  and  the  absorption  of  so  large  a  part  of  the 
people's  invested  capital.  The  foreign  debt,  all  admitted, 
must  be  paid  off  according  to  contract  and  extinguished  as 
speedily  as  possible,  and  to  borrow  enough  to  discharge  this, 
principal  and  interest,  must  be  part  of  a  discreet  funding  sys 
tem.  But  creditors  at  home  need  not,  he  continued,  be  dealt 
with  quite  so  scrupulously  ;  in  other  words,  government  might 
reckon  upon  one's  reluctance  to  accept  immediate  payment 
where  there  was  the  option  of  a  long  loan  at  a  fair  though 
reduced  rate  of  interest.  If,  Hamilton  reasoned,  the  United 
States  plants  itself  firmly  upon  public  good  faith,  we  cau" 
presently  reduce  the  borrowing  rate  from  six  per  cent. ;  prob 
ably  in  five  years  we  can  borrow  at  five  per  cent.,  and  in  fif 
teen  years  at  four  per  cent. 

These  opinions,  positively  pronounced,  thrilled  the  whole 
country  with  astonishment.  Hitherto  our  financial  dealings 
as  an  independent  people,  State  or  Federal,  had  been  con 
ducted  on  the  plan  of  compounding  with  public  creditors. 
Local  securities  had  ranged  in  value  according  to  the  antici 
pated  policy  and  estimated  resources  of  the  State  or  munici 
pality  issuing  them,  but,  low  as  these  might  rate,  they  had 
hitherto  ranged  better,  as  a  rule,  than  those  of  the  United 
States;  for  the  last  had  commanded  since  their  first  issue 
scarcely  more  than  fifteen  cents  on  the  dollar.  On  the  pas 
sage  of  the  first  revenue  act  United  States  securities  had  risen 
somewhat,  but  the  impression  still  prevailed  that  the  new 
Union  would  never  redeem  its  domestic  obligations  except 
upon  the  customary  composition.  No  sooner  then  was  Hamil- 


1790.  FUNDING   THE   PUBLIC   DEBT.  133 

ton's  report  made  public  than  these  securities  ran  up  to  fifty 
cents.  New  York  capitalists  hurried  agents  into  remote  sec 
tions  of  the  country  to  buy  up  in  advance  of  the  news  all  the 
Federal  certificates  they  could  find.  A  speculating  knot, 
which  it  was  rumored  comprised  at  least  one  member  of  the 
House,  dispatched  a  swift-sailing  vessel  to  the  Carolinas  and 
Georgia  on  a  similar  errand. 

Funding  resolutions  were  duly  introduced  in  the  House; 
those  presented  by  Fitzsimons,  of  Pennsylvania,  embodying 
the  secretary's  policy.  Already,  before  crowded  galleries,  had 
the  opponents  of  the  new  plan  denounced  the  spirit  of  havoc 
and  speculation  which  had  followed  the  publication  of  Ham 
ilton's  report.  The  first  of  Fitzsirnous's  resolutions  relating 
to  the  foreign  debt,  passed  unanimously ;  but  upon  the  second, 
which  provided  for  the  payment  of  domestic  creditors  of  the 
Union,  a  running  debate  ensued,  in  the  course  of 
which  appeared  the  agricultural  representatives,  and 
especially  those  from  the  South,  strenuously  opposing  the  plan 
of  paying  Federal  certificates  in  full.  On  their  side  the  op 
pressiveness  of  the  proposed  measure  was  urged,  and  the  ruin 
ous  taxation  whtch  payment  of  the  interest  instalments  alone 
must  necessitate;  furthermore,  the  Federal  policy  hitherto 
pursued,  and  the  general  expectation  when  these  certificates 
were  issued  that  they  would  eventually  be  scaled  down.  But 
the  real  strength  of  their  position  consisted  in  the  fact,  which 
none  could  gainsay,  that  by  paying  in  full  the  nation  would 
not  now  be  rewarding  generously  its  original  creditors,  the 
men  who  had  supplied  sinews  of  strength  in  the  day  of  trou 
ble,  but  simply  enriching  a  horde  of  assignees  who  had  pur 
chased  the  certificates  at  an  enormous  discount,  many  of  them 
trading  even  now  upon  their  superior  knowledge  of  the  Sec 
retary's  plans.  Scale  down  the  domestic  debt  two-thirds  and 
yet  these  hungry  speculators,  it  was  argued,  would  still  make 
a  handsome  profit  upon  their  investment. 

To  Livermore,  of  New  Hampshire,  Scott,  Tucker,  of  South 
Carolina,  and  Jackson,  who  spoke  in  this  strain,  Ames,  Sedg- 
wick,  Boudinot,  Fitzsimons,  and  Smith  responded.  True, 
they  said,  Federal  certificates  might  prove  at  this  late  day  to 
be  largely  held  by  assignees ;  but,  as  the  assignment  was  law- 


134  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

ful,  and  each  former  holder  must  have  parted  with  it  upon 
his  own  estimate  of  the  public  faith,  might  not  the  nation  with 
justice  permit  those  to  make  gain  who  trusted  more  implicitly 
in  the  public  honor  and  stability?  Here  were  certificates,  ex 
pressed  for  a  certain  face  value,  which  the  Continental  govern 
ment  unequivocally  promised  to  make  good,  and  to  that  prom 
ise  and  the  obligation  the  present  Union  was  legitimate  suc 
cessor.  The  measure  proposed  was  a  wholly  practicable  one ; 
surely  with  our  new  energy  and  resources  the  debt  could  be 
borne  in  all  its  integrity,  and  if  we  once  started  upon  the  path 
of  inviolable  honor  our  reward  would  be  found  in  the  re-es 
tablishment  of  general  confidence;  as  borrowers,  too,  we  could 
hereafter,  when  occasion  required,  command  the  most  favor 
able  terms.  These  arguments  were  strongly  stated,  but  by 
none  more  convincingly  than  the  secretary  himself,  whose 
report  had  largely  anticipated  all  the  objections  which  oppo 
nents  could  urge. 

An  illustration  of  the  former  policy  of  the  United  States 
was  supplied  by  the  Continental  currency,  which  had  actually 
been  called  in  for  redemption  at  the  rate  of  forty  to  one. 
This  fact  was  cited  in  the  course  of  the  discussion  ;  but,  as  if 
it  were  not  enough  that  the  policy  of  the  new  Union  should 
rest  upon  its  own  merits,  the  supporters  of  Hamilton's  plan 
drew  a  distinction  between  bills  which  pass  from  hand  to  hand 
in  small  amounts  by  way  of  money,  and  which  Congress  might 
be  said  to  have  wiped  out  by  a  tax  upon  circulation  not  alto 
gether  unequal,  and  paper  like  the  present  which  represented 
the  loans  or  investments  of  individual  government  creditors. 
Scott  put  the  point  that  when  government  incurred  the  latter 
obligations  the  actual  value  of  the  certificates  was  far  below 
the  nominal,  and  that  this  entered  into  the  consideration 
with  the  creditor  himself;  but  Boudinot  quickly  denied  this, 
affirming  upon  his  personal  knowledge  that  the  present  cer 
tificates  were  taken  at  their  full  face  value  by  way  of  defer 
ring  adjustment  of  what  was  actually  due  the  creditor  and  not 
for  satisfaction. 

Madison,  silent  until  this  discussion  had  proceeded  far,  at 
length  rose  to  reconcile,  if  possible,  the  opposing  views.  Ad 
mitting  on  the  one  hand  that  the  public  faith  would  be  kept 


1790.  FUNDING   THE   rUBLIC   DEBT.  135 

inviolable  only  by  paying  these  certificates  at  their  face  value, 
and  on  the  other  declaring  himself  impressed  by  the  palpable 
inequity  of  giving  to  speculators  all  the  benefit  of  a  public 
sacrifice,  he  now  proposed  that  only  original  holders  should  be 
paid  in  full,  and  that  transfers  should  be  adjusted  by  giving 
the  latest  assignee  the  highest  market  value,  the  balance  to 
go  to  the  original  creditor.  This  project  did  his  heart  more 
honor  than  his  head ;  for  such  a  plan  was  utterly  imprac 
ticable  ;  its  very  suggestion  offended  the  secretary's  friends, 
whose  sense  of  public  honor  did  not  admit  the  casuistry  of  a 
debtor's  playing  the  arbiter  among  his  own  creditors,  and  dis 
honoring  his  paper  for  the  sake  of  rewarding  former  holders; 
nor  could  those  opponents  be  satisfied  with  the  plan  whose 
plain  device  was  to  lighten  the  public  load  and  taxation.  The 
subject,  in  fact,  admitted  neither  of  half-way  measures  nor  ab 
stract  justice.  Madison's  proposition  failed  by  13  to  36  ;  and 
ultimately  Hamilton's  policy  prevailed,  as  it  deserved  to. 

Premising  that  "justice  and  the  support  of  public  credit" 
required  that  the  domestic  debt  should  be  funded  upon  equit 
able  and  satisfactory  terms,  and  adapted,  moreover,  to  the 
present  circumstances  of  the  United  States  so  far  as  practicable 
"  consistently  with  good  faith  and  the  rights  of  creditors," — 
"  which,"  it  is  added,  "  can  only  be  done  by  a  voluntary  loan 
on  their  part," — this  part  of  the  funding  bill,  which  was  finally 
enacted,  provided  that  a  new  loan  should  be  opened  at  the 
Treasury  to  the  full  amount  of  the  principal  of  the  debt,  that 
subscriptions  to  this  loan  should  be  receivable  at  par  in 
certificates  of  indebtedness  and  the  outstanding  Continental 
money,  and  that  to  each  subscriber  should  be  given  new  cer 
tificates,  two-thirds  of  which  would  bear  interest  at  once,  while 
the  other  one-third  (known  as  deferred  stock)  was  not  to  be 
interest-bearing  until  after  the  year  1800, — the  rate  in  either 
case  being  six  per  cent.  In  favor  of  the  new  subscription  thus 
offered  to  the  domestic  creditor  was  permanence,  for  the  gov 
ernment  here  limited  its  right  of  redeeming  at  pleasure.  Yet 
if  he  preferred  he  might  retain  his  present  certificates  until 
they  were  called  in,  receiving  principal  and  interest,  mean 
time,  in  full ;  but  not  only  might  these  be  cancelled  very 
speedily,  but  the  rate  of  interest  was  sure  to  be  reduced  so  soon 


136  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

as  the  public  situation  justified  it.  To  the  public  creditor  this 
act  solemnly  pledged  the  net  revenue  of  the  United  States, 
including  the  proceeds  of  laud  sales.* 

But  Hamilton's  other  proposal,  to  assume  the  State  debts, 
was  more  objectionable,  and  less  readily  acceded  to.  This  he 
had  thrown  like  a  firebrand  into  the  peaceable  assembly. 
The  desire  of  consolidating  the  national  influence,  if  not  his 
own,  must,  it  was  felt,  have  prompted  him  to  do  so.  Not  a 
State  nor  a  State  creditor  had  applied  to  Congress  for  re 
lief,  nor  could  this  additional  burden  be  borne  without  new 
ways  and  means,  such  as  a  Federal  excise.  Yet  the  scheme, 
once  broached,  drew  zealous  promoters.  In  Massachusetts 
assumption  became  extremely  popular,  for  her  State  debt  was 
still  very  large,  and  now  that  the  right  of  State  impost  was 
gone,  provision  for  the  annual  interest  thereon  could  not  read 
ily  be  made.  Connecticut  and  South  Carolina  had  similar 
reasons  for  favoring  the  plan.  On  the  other  side  Virginia  led, 
a  State  whose  own  war-debt  had  been  greatly  reduced  by  fund 
ing  securities  at  a  depreciated  rate,  and  selling  Kentucky 
lands,  so  that  interest  was  now  promptly  met.  Other  States 
having  small  debts  were  against  assumption:  Georgia,  Mary- 
laud,  and  New  Hampshire.  The  Middle  States  divided, 
and  Pennsylvania,  whose  interests  were  fairly  balanced,  in 
clined  to  play  the  umpire,  while  New  York  and  New  Jersey 
supported  Hamilton.  In  a  legislative  encounter  so  nearly 
sectional,  the  representatives  of  the  two  leading  States  fought 
stoutly.  Livermore,  Stone,  of  Maryland,  and  Page  and  White, 
of  Virginia,  contended  in  the  House  debate  on  behalf  of  auti- 
assumptionists  that  the  tendency  of  such  a  scheme  was  to  en 
croach  upon  revenue  powers  now  locally  exercised  ;  that  it  was 
unjust  to  tax  States,  who  unaided  had  reduced  their  own  debts, 
for  the  advantage  of  their  less  fortunate  sisters ;  -that  without 
accurate  figures  to  show  the  aggregate  amount  of  those  debts, 
it  was  a  dangerous  responsibility  for  the  Union  to  undertake 
liquidating  them.  To  this  the  secretary's  supporters  replied 
that  one  body  can  more  readily  draw  out  the  resources  of  the 
Union  than  many  ;  that  we  have  data  fair  enough  for  reliable 

*  Act  August  4th,  1790,  c.  34  ;  Annals  of  Congress,  1790. 


1790.  ASSUMPTION   AND    THE    CAPITAL.  137 

estimates  of  these  debts,  and  may  trust  the  States  interested  as 
to  the  merits  of  their  creditors ;  and  that  it  would  be  of  general 
advantage  to  the  nation  to  set  the  States  once  more  upon  their 
feet.  They  conceded  that  no  debts  ought  to  be  assumed 
except  those  actually  incurred  on  behalf  of  independence,  but 
these,  they  claimed,  ought  to  be  treated  as  expenditures  for 
the  common  benefit.  Thus  argued  some  of  the  ablest  of  the 
House  debaters,  among  them  Lawrence,  of  New  York,  Smith 
and  Burke,  of  South  Carolina,  and  Fitzsimons ;  but  as  the 
most  strenuous  of  all,  Roger  Sherman  and  the  Massachusetts 
phalanx,  Ames,  Gerry,  Goodhue,  and  Sedgwick. 

As  the  session  advanced  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
threw  themselves  with  great  energy  into  the  cause  of  assump 
tion.  Connecticut  repealed  her  excise  act ;  the  Massachusetts 
legislature,  in  session  through  the  winter,  was  pressed  by  tax 
payers  to  do  the  same,  and  finally  adjourned  without  making 
adequate  provision  for  the  State  debts,  relying  upon  Congres 
sional  action.  But  a  feverish  uncertainty  attended  the  pro 
ceedings  of  the  national  legislature.  Aided  by  a  lew  disinter 
ested  members  who  supported  the  secretary's  plan  purely  as 
an  administration  measure,  the  assumptionists  had  carried 
their  point  in  the  House  at  the  earlier  stage  of  pro 
ceedings.  But  their  slight  majority  was  reversed 
when  the  North  Carolina  members  took  their  seats  ; 
and  presently  assumption  was  lost  by  31  to  29.  Mad 
ison,  an  anti-centralization  man,  like  most  others  of  the  Virginia 
school,  had  taken  the  anti-assumption  side  ;  though  cautious  in 
his  opposition,  for  he  was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  adminis 
tration  still,  even  if  Hamilton  had  proposed  this  measure  with 
out  consulting  him.  The  House  adopted  a  substitute  resolu 
tion,  which  he  had  prepared,  for  liquidating  the  accounts 
between  the  States  and  the  Union  ;  his  idea  being  that  a.  just 
assumption  policy  ought  to  take  into  account  whatever  debts 
the  States  might  have  incurred  for  the  common  defence, 
whether  already  paid  off  or  not,  or,  in  other  words,  to  liquidate 
and  apportion  among  them  the  expenses  of  revolution  ab 
initio. 

The  Eastern  members  were  very  angry  over  their  defeat. 
Sedgwick,  who  was  for  saddling  the  central  government  with 
VOL.  i.— 12 


138  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

everything  the  States  now  owed,  warned  the  House  not  to 
invade  the  last  excise  resource  of  Massachusetts.  Others,  who 
had  taken  their  seats  in  January  without  a  thought  on  this 
subject,  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  assumption  was  no 
neutral  measure,  but  one  whose  rejection  would  lead  to  dis 
union.  So  bitter  were  some  that  there  was  danger  of  losing 
the  funding  bill  altogether  unless  assumption  was  part  of  it. 
Taunts  were  interchanged  as  to  the  mutual  sacrifices  of  the 
States  during  the  war  of  independence.  Representatives  of 
South  Carolina  charged  that  Maryland  and  Georgia  had  not 
suffered  like  their  State  from  the  ravages  of  war.  For  Vir 
ginia  it  was  claimed  that  she  had  borne  the  chief  burdens  of 
the  Revolution ;  but  the  Massachusetts  members,  calling  for 
official  records,  pointed  out  that  their  State  had  furnished 
more  troops  than  any  other  member  of  the  Union,  Connecticut 
standing  second.  Jackson  ridiculed  certain  items  in  the 
State  debts  of  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina,  like  the 
Penobscot  expedition  from  the  former  and  the  outfit  of  an 
expensive  ship  from  the  latter,  as  "  balloon  exploits  on  their 
own  account,"  which  other  States  ought  not  to  be  taxed  for. 

Meanwhile  Congress  had  been  agitating  the  question  of  a 
permanent  Capital.  The  recollection  of  the  mortifying 
escapade  of  1783  had  fixed  the  determination  of  those  who 
framed  our  Constitution  to  have  done  with  headquarters,  and 
ordain  that  there  should  be  a  permanent  Federal  Capital,  free 
of  State  jurisdiction.  Where  the  Capital  should  be  located 
occupied  the  attention  of  Congress  at  its  first  session.  New 
York  was  not  averse  to  such  a  distinction,  and  the  legislature, 
in  fact,  took  some  steps  toward  providing  a  permanent  Presi 
dential  mansion  in  its  metropolis;  but  New  York  city  was  an 
expensive  place  of  residence,  and  the  reasons  must  have  been 
very  strong  against  permitting  it  to  be  detached  from  the  State. 
Pennsylvania,  with  her  leverage  upon  Northern  and  Southern 
interests,  was  a  more  promising  competitor  ;  and,  after  some 
altercation,  at  their  first  session  a  bill  actually  passed  both 
branches  of  Congress  shortly  before  adjournment 
which  fixed  upon  Germantown  as  the  permanent 
site  of  the  Federal  Capital.  But  those  who  wished  the  Poto 
mac  location  got  a  House  amendment  tacked  to  the  bill 


1790.  ASSUMPTION   AND   THE   CAPITAL.  139 

which  compelled  its  return  to  the  Senate,  and,  profiting  by  the 
late  hour  of  the  session,  they  parried  a  final  disposition  of  the 
subject. 

By  the  time  Congress  came  together  again  new  combina 
tions  had  occurred  which  forbade  the  hope  of  mak- 

1790 

ing  the  Federal  city  a  Philadelphia  suburb.  But  a 
scramble  was  now  renewed  between  New  York  and  Philadel 
phia  for  at  all  events  the  temporary  seat ;  the  former  bill  con 
cluding  such  provision  as  must  have  kept  the  seat  of  govern 
ment  at  New  York  for  several  years  to  come.  Beyond  this 
"grog-shop  contest  "as  to  which  city  should,  as  temporary 
Capital,  get  the  most  money  out  of  Congress,  the  question  of 
permanent  location  was  a  difficult  one  to  settle,  so  strong  was 
the  rivalry.  It  appeared  the  general  disposition  to  select 
some  central  site,  and,  further,  an  unpopulous  neighborhood. 
Rome  had  its  Tiber,  and  as  great  towns  bordered  upon  great 
rivers,  accessible  to  commerce,  the  practical  controversy  nar 
rowed  down  to  the  respective  merits  of  the  Delaware,  Susque- 
hauna,  and  Potomac,  with  a  contingent  chance  for  the  Pa- 
tapsco.  Now  this  Capital  issue,  like  that  of  assumption, 
touched  particular  States  deeply,  so  as  to  make  them  counter- 
measures.  Combining  with  New  England  for  protective  du 
ties  at  the  first  session,  Pennsylvania  had  formed  a  strong  ally 
against  the  South  in  what  were  then  her  own  Capital  pretensions ; 
members  from  the  Eastern  quarter  having  of  course  no  claims 
to  prefer  for  themselves.  But  at  this  session  New  England 
men  suspected  that  Pennsylvanians  were  courting  the  South, 
and  had  aided  them  to  prevent  assumption  in  the  hope  of  se 
curing  votes  for  at  least  the  temporary  abode  of  Congress  in 
return.  A  resolution  being  under  discussion  which  made 
Philadelphia  the  place  for  the  next  meeting  of  Congress,  the 
angry  assumptionists  took  their  revenge  by  getting 
Baltimore  substituted,  the  vote  standing  31  to  28. 

This  brought  legislation  to  a  standstill.  The  Potomac  men 
had  hoped  to  gain  the  permanent  Capital  by  giving  the  tem 
porary  one  to  Philadelphia,  though  it  appeared  that  the  Sen 
ate  still  held  the  present  resolution  in  abeyance  in  order  that 
the  whole  question  of  a  seat  of  government  might  be  settled 
by  one  bill.  To  locate  the  Federal  residence  on  the  Potomac, 


140  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

Virginia  and  Maryland  were  very  earnest ;  Madison  had 
worked  to  gain  it,  nor,  as  it  appears,  was  Washington  himself 
wholly  without  a  feeling  of  local  pride  in  the  matter.  Mas 
sachusetts  and  Connecticut  members  were  willing  that  these 
States  as  well  as  their  Philadelphia  brethren  should  feel  the 
blow,  deeming  it  an  outrage  upon  their  own  section  that  the 
Federal  city  project  should  be  carried  by  the  very  votes  which 
defeated  their  favorite  assumption.*  Congress  now  grew  per 
verse  over  the  public  business ;  threats  of  disunion  were  mut 
tered  ;  both  Houses  met  and  adjourned  without  dispatching 
anything. 

But  out  of  this  double  entanglement  came  a  double  adjust 
ment  on  the  basis  of  mutual  surrender.  Hamilton  had  not 
thrown  out  at  random  the  assumption  project  to  alight  where 
it  would,  but  this  was  his  first  move  in  a  well-laid  plan.  To 
Jefferson,  who  arrived  at  New  York  the  last  of  March,  he  now 
appealed  for  help.  The  new  Secretary  of  State,  seeing  noth 
ing  very  objectionable  in  assumption,  undertook  with  good- 
humor  the  office  of  pacificator.  According  to  his  own  state 
ment  he  made  a  dinner  party  for  Hamilton  and  one  or  two 
influential  friends,  at  which  the  situation  was  discussed  at 
length,  terminating  in  a  final  understanding  that  two  Virginia 
members,  White  and  Lee,  should  change  their  votes  on  as 
sumption,  while  Hamilton  should  in  return,  with  the  aid  of 
Robert  Morris,  secure  the  Potomac  for  the  permanent  capital 
of  the  Union."}*  Some  arrangement  of  this  character  was  evi 
dently  wrought  out,  for  by  a  slight  change  of  votes,  the  two 
bills  presently  passed  to  be  enacted,  in  a  shape  not  unpalatable 
either  to  the  assumptionists  or  the  Potomac  men  ;  the  House 
first  disposing  favorably  of  the  scat  of  government,  and  after 
wards  accepting  the  funding  bill  with  a  Senate  amendment 
which  restored  the  State  debts  feature.  But  assumption,  as 

*  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1790 ;  1  Madison's  Writings,  1789,  1790. 

f  See  Jefferson's  Anas,  1790.  Jefferson  here  complains  that  Hamil 
ton  duped  him  into  forwarding  a  scheme  not  then  sufficiently  under 
stood.  But  Jefferson's  correspondence,  1790,  shows  that  he  was  not 
especially  averse  to  the  assumption  itself.  Perhaps  he  means  that  be 
was  not  then  aware  that  assumption  was  intended  by  Hamilton  as  the 
beginning  only  of  Federal  aggrandizement. 


1790.  ASSUMPTION   AND   THE   CAPITAL.  141 

finally  adopted,  was  different  from  that  which  Hamilton  had 
proposed,  for,  conforming  to  ideas  which  Sherman  and  Gerry 
had  already  suggested  to  make  its  course  easier,  the  specific 
sum  to  be  assessed  for  each  State  was  stated  definitely. 

The  aggregate  assumption  of  State  debts  was  limited  to  the 
arbitrary  sum  of  $21,500,000,  and  in  the  end  these  State 
douceurs  entailed  actual  loss  to  the  United  States ;  for  on  a 
later  computation  of  the  Revolutionary  accounts  it  appeared 
that  some  States  actually  owed  more  to  the  Union  than  they 
thus  received,  and  their  deficit  was  never  made  good.*  Some 

*  The  amount  assumed  for  the  State  debts  under  the  funding  act  of 
August  4,  1790,  c.  3-1,  was  distributed  as  follows : 

New  Hampshire, $300,000 

Massachusetts, 4,000,000 

Rhode  Island, 200,000 

Connecticut, 1,600,000 

New  York, 1,200,000 

New  Jersey, 800,000 

Pennsylvania, 2,200,000 

Delaware, 200,000 

Maryland, 800,000 

Virginia, 3,500,000 

North  Carolina, 2,400,000 

South  Carolina, 4,000,000 

Georgia, 300,000 

$21,500,000 

Certificates  of  State  debts  were  to  be  received  for  these  several  amounts. 
If  the  subscriptions  should  exceed  the  limit  lixcd  for  a  State,  subscribers 
should  be  paid  pro  rata.  But  should  the  subscriptions  prove  less  for  any 
State  than  that  State  was  to  receive,  interest  on  the  amount  of  deficiency 
should  be  allowed  until  its  Revolutionary  account  was  adjusted. 

As  part  of  the  general  funding  scheme,  though  not  to  operate  so  as  to 
delay  assumption,  it  was  provided  that  the  Revolutionary  accounts 
should  be  made  up  between  the  several  States  and  the  Union.  Those 
States  proving  creditors  still  should  have  their  balances  refunded  on 
terms  similar  to  those  of  the  assumed  debt.  Act  of  August  5th,  1790, 
c.  38. 

For  details  as  to  the  State  balances  afterwards  found  due,  and  upon 
which,  as  Gallatin  showed,  loss  resulted  to  the  United  States,  see  5  Ilil- 
dreth,  44G  ;  4  Hamilton's  Republic,  157.  State  balances  were  owed  by 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North 


142  HISTOKY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

States,  however,  Massachusetts  in  particular,  reaped  a  just 
benefit  by  the  generosity  of  Congress  in  thus  consolidating  the 
public  credit,  and  there  was  great  popular  rejoicing  when  the 
legislature,  convoked  by  Governor  Hancock  in  special  session 
for  that  purpose,  repealed  in  September  the  State  excise  act. 

The  bill  providing  for  the  seat  of  government  authorized 
the  President  to  appoint  commissioners,  who  should  locate  on 
the  Potomac  River,  within  defined  limits,  a  district  not  more 
than  ten  miles  square,  the  same  to  be  taken  for  the  permanent 
seat  of  government.  Until  1800  Philadelphia  was  to  be  the 
temporary  Capital  of  the  United  States.* 

The  ill-temper  of  Congress  forbade  the  creation  of  a  Fed 
eral  excise  at  this  session  ;  though  such  was  to  be  the  inevitable 
result  of  assumption  sooner  or  later.  But  the  import  and 
navigation  duties  were  increased  so  as  to  yield  as  much  as 
possible  for  the  needs  of  the  revenue.  Inflexible  honesty  and 
good  faith  to  the  public  creditor  were  clearly  proclaimed  in 
the  funding  act  as  the  policy  of  the  nation,  a  decisive  step  in 
the  right  direction. 

The  slavery  question  deserves  attention  in  connection  with 
the  angry  debates  of  this  session.  Were  an  American  Ho 
garth  to  arise  and  rebuke  self-conceit  by  showing  how  quickly 
the  wisdom  of  one  age  is  converted  into  the  folly  of  the  next, 
he  could  find  subjects  for  his  pencil  without  going  far  beyond 
the  annals  of  America.  He  would  begin  with  the  venerable 
potentates  of  Salamanca,  employing  all  the  weapons  of  relig 
ion  and  science  to  prove  against  Columbus  that  the  world  was 
flat.  Next  he  might  exhibit  a  boat-load  of  Virginia  immi 
grants  painfully  exploring  the  Chickahominy  to  find  an  out 
let  to  the  South  Sea.  But  his  portfolio  would  not  be  complete 
without  some  sketch  of  an  American  Congress  deliberating 
upon  slavery  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  That  an  institu 
tion,  both  wasteful  and  unrighteous,  should  have  been  suffered 

Carolina.  The  New  York  deficit  was  decidedly  the  largest, — over 
$2,000,000, — with  a  partial  credit  allowed  for  fortifications  afterwards, 
not  quite  $223,000. 

*  Act  July  16th,  1790,  c.  28.  See  Act  March  3d,  1791,  c.  17  ;  Annals 
of  Congress,  1790. 


1790.  SLAVERY    DISCUSSIONS.  143 

by  wise  statesmen  to  fasten  its  poisonous  fangs  so  deeply  into 
the  vitals  of  a  republic  whose  essential  foundation  was  free 
dom,  is  one  of  those  political  facts  which  only  the  theory  of 
human  imperfection  can  well  explain,  so  inevitable  must  have 
been  the  filial  catastrophe. 

In  1790,  at  the  period  of  Washington's  first  term,  slavery 
had  a  nominal  existence  in  every  State  except  Massachusetts. 
The  same  New  York  newspaper  which  announced  the  arrival 
of  the  President-elect  in  one  column,  offered  for  sale  in  an 
other  <%a  likely,  healthy  young  negro  wench,  between  fifteen 
and  sixteen  years  old,"*  and  Anti-Federalists  were  reminded 
soon  after  of  the  advantage  they  reaped  under  the  new  Con 
stitution  in  having  two  runaway  negroes  apprehended  in  Bos 
ton  and  sent  back.f  But  an  international  anti-slavery  move 
ment  was  in  progress  at  this  time.  Clarkson  and  Wilberibrce 
led  in  England,  where  the  latter  had  brought  forward  his  first 
measure  in  Parliament  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  in 
the  British  West  Indies.  A  British  abolition  society,  formed 
in  1787,  kindled  sentiment  in  that  country,  a  popular  device 
representing  the  African  kneeling  in  chains  and  imploring, 
"Am  I  not  a  man  and  a  brother?"  Abolition  societies  ex 
isted  in  several  American  States,  particularly  in  the  middle 
section,  Pennsylvania  being  a  missionary  State  surrounded  by 
the  unconverted,  and  Philadelphia  the  centre  of  anti-slavery 
operations.  The  prime  objects  of  the  American  societies, 
among  whose  present  leaders  were  Dr.  Hush,  Tench  Coxe, 
Chief  Justice  Jay,  and  the  aged  Franklin,  were  not  less  prac 
tical  and  conservative  than  benevolent ;  namely,  to  further 
the  cause  of  gradual  emancipation,  and  to  persuade  Congress 
to  favor  freedom  as  far  as  the  Constitution  would  permit.J 

*  N.  Y.  Gazette,  April  24th,  1789. 

f  Centinel,  Boston,  May  16th,  1789. 

J  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for  Promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery 
was  formed  as  a  voluntary  society  in  1775  ;  then  after  some  years  of  in 
action  reorganized  in  1784,  and  finally  incorporated  with  some  changes  in 
1789,  its  full  style  being  for  Promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery,  for  the 
Relief  of  Free  Negroes  Unlawfully  Held  in  Bondage,  and  for  Improving 
the  Condition  of  the  African  Eace.  This,  the  earliest  of  American  abo 
lition  societies,  co-operated  with  the  legislature  in  carrying  out  the  plan 
of  gradual  emancipation  in  Pennsylvania.  Franklin,  whose  name  stood 


144  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

In  1791  France  by  her  National  Assembly  virtually  granted 
equal  political  rights  to  freemen  without  distinction  of  color. 
Certain  religious  sects  in  America  had  recently  taken  strong 
anti-slavery  ground,  for  instance,  the  Presbyterians  and  Meth 
odists  ;  but  both  in  England  and  America  the  Quakers  had 
long  been  the  most  strongly  identified  with  this  humane  move 
ment,  subjecting  to  discipline  all  members  who  held  slaves. 

Gradual  emancipation  was  at  this  period  the  favorite  and 
most  successful  method  of  reclaiming  the  old  States  to  free 
dom,  and  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and  New  Hampshire 
had  already  emulated  Pennsylvania's  example  in  adopting  it. 
The  seed  now  ripened  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  and 
strong  hopes  were  entertained  of  speedy  abolition  in  all  the 
old  thirteen  States  north  of  North  Carolina.  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  had  all,  in  fact, 
prohibited  slave  importation,  and  Jefferson  and  Wythe,  as 
commissioners  to  revise  the  statutes  of  Virginia,  once  agreed 
upon  a  measure  of  gradual  emancipation  for  that  State,  which, 
however,  the  legislature  hesitated  in  1785  to  accept. 

In  the  convention  of  1787  Virginia  statesmen  were  promi 
nent  for  their  anti-slavery  efforts.  And  now  at  the 

1789 

first  session  of  the  first  Congress,  Parker,  of  that 
State,  had  introduced,  by  way  of  amendment  to  the  revenue 
bill  then  undergoing  discussion  in  the  House,  the  proposition, 
clearly  constitutional,  that  a  tax  should  be  levied  on  the  im 
portation  of  slaves.  He  and  his  colleagues  supported  this 
measure,  not  for  the  sake  of  increasing  the  revenue  so  much 
as  to  discourage  an  infamous  traffic.  But  the  discussion 
showed  that  leading  members  north  of  Pennsylvania  were 
either  lukewarm  or  too  anxious  to  court  South  Carolina  votes 
for  their  protective  duties.  Most  kept  an  ominous  silence; 
Ames,  who  had  warmed  into  eloquence  on  rum  and  molasses, 
interposed  plausible  objections.  In  this  division  of  the  House 

first  in  the  act  of  incorporation,  was  made  the  president  in  1787,  and 
Dr.  Rush  (an  earlier  president  and  influential  member),  secretary.  Hon 
orary  members  were  from  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  together  with  Lafayette, 
Brissot,  and  other  philanthropists  abroad.  Its  constitution  provided  that 
no  slaveholder  should  be  admitted  a  member.  Penn.  Hist.  Soc.  Records. 


1789.  SLAVERY   DISCUSSIONS.  145 

the  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  men  prevented  action  from 
being  taken.  The  impetuous  Jackson,  of  Georgia,  a  man  who 
used  to  bellow  so  loudly  that  Senators  would  shut  their  win 
dows  to  prevent  being  disturbed,  thus  declaimed:  "Virginia 
is  an  old  State  and  has  her  full  complement  of  slaves  already ; 
she  ought  not  to  shut  the  door  until  her  neighbors  are  sup 
plied.  Men  at  the  eastward  view  this  business  in  an  odious 
light  because  they  can  do  their  own  work  and  do  not  need 
slaves ;  but  let  them  not  break  us  down  with  their  burdens. 
Indeed,"  he  continued,  after  this  caution  to  protectionists, 
"  there  is  as  much  need  of  legislating  for  the  white  slaves,  im 
ported  from  all  the  jails  of  Europe,  as  for  the  blacks.  Ne 
groes  are  better  off  as  slaves  than  as  free.  The  free  negroes 
of  Maryland  have  turned  out  common  pickpockets,  petty  lar 
ceny  villains.  Nor  are  slaves  worse  off  in  America,  where  we 
provide  for  their  comforts,  than  in  Africa,  where  prisoners  of 
war  are  sold  and  parents  trade  off  their  own  offspring."*  This 
tirade  had  the  effect  designed  ;  Parker  was  persuaded  to  with 
draw  his  motion  and  leave  the  matter  for  consideration  in  a 
separate  bill ;  but  here  the  matter  silently  dropped,  and  no  tax 
on  the  slave  trade  was  ever  laid.f 

But  a  fresh  eruption  occurred  at  this  second  session.  Early 
in  February  memorials  were  presented  in  behalf  of  emancipa 
tion  ;  first  from  the  Quakers  of  the  Middle  States ;  next  from  the 
Abolition  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  Franklin's  name  heading 
the  latter.  "Equal  liberty,"  claimed  the  abolition  petition, 
"  was  originally  the  portion  and  is  still  the  birthright  of  all 
men."  And  its  prayer  to  Congress  was,  "That  you  will  pro 
mote  mercy  and  justice  towards  this  distressed  race  ;  and  that 
you  will  step  to  the  very  verge  of  the  power  vested  in  you  for 
discouraging  every  species  of  traffic  in  the  persons  of  our  fel 
low-men." 

*  Of  the  "  white  slaves,"  or  indentured  apprentices,  at  whom  Jackson 
here  flung  out,  it  should  be  observed  that  their  importation  virtually 
ceased  at  the  Revolution.  As  to  redemptionists,  see  next  chapter.  Great 
Britain,  in  her  own  interest,  had  by  law  restrained  the  transportation  of 
her  subjects  who  were  skilled  in  manufactures.  4  Hildreth's  United 
States,  93. 

f  See  Annals  of  Congress,  1789. 
VOL.  i.— 13 


146  HISTORY  OF   THE  UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

It  happened  for  the  second  time  that  freedom  was  wounded 
in  the  house  of  its  friends.  While  members  from  Eastern 
States,  writhing  at  the  fear  of  losing  their  pet  assumption, 
affected  to  treat  the  whole  subject  as  a  matter  of  mere  "  moon 
shine,"*  the  Georgia  bull  lowered  his  horns  once  more  and 
dashed  at  the  petitioners ;  this  time  followed  by  Smith,  of 
South  Carolina,  who,  if  less  vociferous,  was  quite  as  reckless 
an  assailant.  The  Quakers  were  indecently  assailed.  It  was 
a  cowardly  sect,  they  declared ;  men  who  had  not  only  held 
back  from  fighting  for  independence,  but  played  into  our 
enemies'  hands;  persons  who  profess  not  to  interfere  with  affairs 
of  state,  and  then  come  before  Congress  to  try  to  fix  a  stigma 
upon  Southern  gentlemen.  They  ridiculed  the  peculiarities 
of  "Shaking  Quakers,"  and  jeered  at  the  solemn  tone  of  the 
memorialists.  "  Do  they  mean  to  rob  the  Almighty,"  asks 
Smith,  "  of  what  they  call  His  prerogative?" 

But  Smith  and  Jackson  overshot  their  mark  in  trying  to 
bully  the  House  thus  into  refusing  these  petitioners  the  decent 
respect  of  a  commitment.  The  petitions  were  referred  to  a 
committee  ;f  but,  upon  the  report  of  this  committee,  the  on 
slaught  was  renewed  with  a  confidence  that  assured  to  Georgia 
and  South  Carolina  a  partial  victory.  They  renewed  their 
abuse  of  Quakers.  They  vaunted  the  humane  treatment 
negroes  received  in  their  States ;  recalled  the  virtues  of  those 
ancient  slaveholders,  the  Greeks  and  Romans ;  scouted  the 
thought  that  slavery  debauches  the  master ;  and  even  went  to 
the  extreme  of  pronouncing  emancipation  a  folly.  The  negroes, 
they  claimed,  are  by  nature  an  inferior  race ;  they  will  not 
fight,  and  cannot  be  made  useful  citizens  or  good  soldiers. 
This  was  a  fair  sample  of  the  pro-slavery  arguments  which 
have  done  service  in  many  congressional  debates.  All  the 
prominent  orators  among  the  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
representatives — Smith,  Burke,  Tucker,  Jackson,  and  Bald 
win — took  part,  increasing,  doubtless,  their  popularity  among 
their  constituents  in  the  approach  of  the  new  elections.  These 
sought,  overstraining  the  language  of  the  memorials,  to  make 

*  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1790. 

f  The  vote  stood  43  to  14.    Annals  of  Congress,  1790. 


1790.  SLAVERY   DISCUSSIONS.  147 

Congress  declare  that  the  prayer  for  abolition  was  a  prayer  for 
unconstitutional  action. 

Sedgwick,  Gerry,  and  Sherman  from  New  England,  Hart 
ley,  Boudinot,  and  Scott  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Madison, 
Parker,  and  Page  of  Virginia  had  joined  in  holding  the 
House  to  the  course  of  decent  respect  for  decent  petitions.  The 
resolutions  reported  from  the  committee,  seven  in  number, 
were  moderately  expressed,  and  simply  aimed,  in  the  form  of 
general  propositions,  to  distinguish  the  lawful  limitations  upon 
congressional  action  in  the  premises ;  for  it  was  undeniable 
that,  as  concerned  slavery,  the  Constitution  left  something  to 
the  discretion  of  this  body,  unlike  the  Continental  Congress, 
its  predecessor,  which  could  not  interfere  at  all.  In  the  course 
of  debate  upon  these  resolutions  a  few  manly  speeches  were 
made  on  the  anti-slavery  side ;  those  of  Scott,  Vining,  and 
Boudiuot  in  particular.  Upon  Boudinot  it  chiefly  devolved 
to  defend  the  Quakers.  He  vindicated  their  patriotism  during 
the  Revolution,  and  instanced  their  humanity  towards  pris 
oners  of  war.  Against  fifteenth  century  writers,  quoted  by  the 
opposition  in  defence  of  slavery  as  a  social  system,  he  adduced 
the  later  Paley  ;  reminding  the  House,  too,  of  the  attitude 
America  had  assumed  at  the  outset  of  her  struggle  for  inde 
pendence.  "  If  the  Supreme  Being,"  he  continues,  "  has  borne 
with  the  unhappy  subjects  of  our  consideration,  not  for  one 
hundred,  but  for  thousands  of  years,  in  their  own  native  land, 
and  has  provided  them  with  climate,  soil,  and  social  comforts 
in  which  they  rejoice,  must  we  be  discontented,  and  suppose 
that,  by  adding  to  their  misery,  we  can  add  to  their  happi 
ness?" 

But,  exasperated  as  the  Northern  members  had  good  reason 
to  be  by  the  violence  of  the  Southernmost  faction,  who  fought 
these  resolutions  step  by  step,  as  though  determined  to  admit 
nothing  to  go  upon  the  record  which  might  serve  as  a  national 
stimulus  to  emancipation,  their  zeal,  if  not  their  courage,  was 
fast  oozing  out.  Of  the  seven  propositions,  three  denied  the 
right  of  Congress  to  interfere  in  certain  instances  with  slavery, 
and  were  of  course  acceptable  to  Georgia  and  South  Carolina 
members;  three  affirmed  a  right,  within  constitutional  limits,  as 
to  taxing  and  regulating  the  slave-trade;  the  seventh,  which  was 


1  18  HISTORY   OF    THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

most  pertinent  of  all,  promised  on  behalf  of  the  Union  to  pro 
mote  the  humane  objects  of  the  memorialists  in  all  cases  to 
which  the  authority  of  Congress  might  extend.  The  arrival 
of  the  North  Carolina  delegation  reinforced  the  vote  of  the 
pro-slavery  extremists,  by  whose  procurement  the  seventh  reso 
lution  was  stricken  out,  together  with  the  fourth,  which 
asserted  the  unquestionable  right  of  levying  a  ten-dollar  tax 
upon  the  importation  of  slaves. 

Ames  would  have  dropped  the  whole  wrangle  upon  abstract 
dogmas  at  this  point ;  but  upon  Madison's  suggestion  it  was  de 
cided  to  enter  the  resolutions  on  the  House  journal,  which, 
in  the  shape  finally  adopted,  read  as  follows  :  "  (1st.)  That  the 
migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  States 
now  existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  cannot  be  prohibited 
by  Congress  prior  to  the  year  1808.  (2d.)  That  Congress  have 
no  authority  to  interfere  in  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  or  io 
the  treatment  of  them  within  any  of  the  States;  it  remaining 
with  the  several  States  alone  to  provide  any  regulations  therein 
which  humanity  and  true  policy  may  require.  (3d.)  That 
Congress  have  authority  to  restrain  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  from  carrying  on  the  African  trade  for  the  purpose  of 
supplying  foreigners  with  slaves,  and  of  providing,  by  proper 
regulations,  for  the  humane  treatment  during  their  passage 
of  slaves  imported  by  the  said  citizens  into  the  States  admit 
ting  such  importation.  (4th.)  That  Congress  have  also  author 
ity  to  prohibit  foreigners  from  fitting  out  vessels  in  any  port  of 
the  United  States  for  transporting  persons  from  Africa  to  any 
foreign  port."  The  public  hardly  needed  Madison's  soothing 
assurance  that  the  House  resolutions  as  thus  expressed  would 
serve  rather  to  quiet  the  fears  of  the  South  than  encourage  the 
prayer  of  the  memorialists.* 

How  far  the  desire  to  conciliate  votes  sorely  needed  may 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  February  lltli-March  23d,  1790. 

The  abolition  societies  of  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  Penn 
sylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  all  presented  memorials  to  the  House 
about  December,  1791,  praying  that  Congress  would  discourage  slavery 
to  the  extent  of  its  powers  as  thus  entered  on  its  records.  But  beyond  a 
reference  to  a  select  committee  nothing  was  done.  See  Perm.  Hist.  Soc. 
Records. 


1791.  SLAVERY   DISCUSSIONS.  149 

have  influenced  leading  assumptionists  in  this  debate  we  can 
only  conjecture.  But  it  should  be  observed  that  the  House 
not  only  dropped  its  handy  weapon  of  a  ten-dollar  tax  for  dis 
couraging  the  slave  trade,  but  made  no  formal  assertion  of 
that  power,  transcendent  if  exercised,  of  legislating  against 
slavery  in  the  public  domain.  The  omission  could  not  have 
been  inadvertent,  for  Madison  had  alluded  to  it  in  the  course 
of  debate  as  a  congressional  right  which  might  well  be  ex 
erted  in  aid  of  the  abolitionists.  Perhaps  two  acts  of  some 
what  later  date  in  this  session  may  explain  the  circumstance. 
One  accepted  North  Carolina's  cession,  simultaneously  with 
her  admission  into  the  Union,  of  that  Southwest  territory 
which  later  became  the  State  of  Tennessee ;  and  with  this 
counterpart  to  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  that  "no  regulations 
made  or  to  be  made  by  Congress  shall  tend  to  emancipate 
slaves."*  The  other  made  general  regulation  of  the  territory 
south  of  the  Ohio  similar  to  that  of  the  Northwest  territory, 
except  as  the  North  Carolina  cession  provided.f  Whether 
Congress  took  this  false  step  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
extending  the  Federal  compact  between  freedom  and  slavery 
which  the  Constitution  had  only  partially  insisted  upon,  or 
from  a  mistaken  sense  that  North  Carolina's  surrender  of  title 
was  too  valuable  to  refuse  because  of  the  cruel  conditions 
attached  to  the  gift,  the  record  does  not  show.  The  legislation 
was  readily  accomplished,  not  without  Northern  assistance  in 
both  houses,  and  of  the  debates  and  votes  no  full  record  is 
preserved. 

All  this  paved  the  way  for  general  consent,  at  the  third 
and  final  session,  to  the  simultaneous  admission  of  Vermont 
and  Kentucky  as  new  States,  the  one  with  a  free  and  the 
other  with  a  slave  constitution.;];  Sectional  jealousy  had  some- 

*  Act  April  2d,  1790,  c.  6.  f  Act  May  20th,  1790,  c.  14. 

J  The  act  relative  to  Kentucky  passed  first.  Act  February  4th,  1791,  c.  4. 
That  concerning  Vermont  is  Act  February  18th,  1791,  c.  7.  But  Vermont 
was  to  be  admitted  from  March  4th,  1791,  and  Kentucky  (as  petitioned  for) 
not  until  June  1st,  1792.  Vermont  had  already  a  State  constitution,  and 
before  applying  to  Congress  voted  in  convention,  January  19th,  1791,  to 
ratify  the  Federal  Constitution.  Kentucky  had  not  yet  formed  her  State 


150  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

thing  to  do  with  keeping  these  new  sisters  waiting  so  long  at 
the  threshold,  and  the  method  of  their  final  acceptance  affords 
further  proof  that  the  first  Congress,  with  all  its  practical 
statesmanship,  could  boast  little  tenderness  of  conscience  touch 
ing  human  rights  or  a  broad  apprehension  of  the  dangerous 
antagonisms  it  fostered  for  the  sake  of  present  harmony.  Its 
nerve  proved  unequal  to  sustaining  an  emancipation  policy 
within  strictly  constitutional  limits ;  the  glory  of  the  Ordi 
nance  of  1787  was  quickly  dimmed  by  a  dumb  acquiescence 
in  the  miserable  policy  of  halving  the  national  territory 
between  freedom  and  slavery. 

Franklin  died  a  few  weeks  after  Congress  had  disposed  of 
the  memorial  which  bore  his  illustrious  signature,  and  in  two 
continents  funeral  honors  were  bestowed  upon  a  private  cit 
izen  and  man  of  the  people  which  kings  might  have  envied. 
In  this  last  public  act  of  his  life,  the  only  one  in  fact  which 
associates  his  name  closely  with  America's  new  epoch,  the 
veteran  patriot,  whom  some  House  debaters  supposed  to  be  in 
his  dotage,  proved  himself  as  clear-sighted  as  ever, — a  states 
man,  sagacious  and  philanthropic,  in  advance  of  his  times.* 

constitution,  and  was  virtually  accepted  into  the  Union  by  Congress 
without  conditions  of  any  sort. 

The  public  impression  regarding  the  true  intent  of  this  joint  admission 
may  be  gathered  from  a  verse  which  went  the  rounds  of  the  newspapers 
in  December,  1790: 

"  Kentucky  to  the  Union  given, 
Vermont  will  make  the  balance  even. 
Still  Pennsylvania  holds  the  scales, 
And  neither  South  nor  North  prevails." 

*  Benjamin  Franklin's  death  occurred  April  17th,  1790,  at  the  age  of 
eighty -four.  Appropriate  action  was  taken  by  Congress,  and  the  French 
National  Assembly  went  into  mourning,  and  paid  repeated  tributes  to 
his  memory,  as  though  France  had  lost  a  favorite  son.  Mirabeau  an 
nounced  his  death  as  that  of  "  the  man  who  emancipated  America  ;  the 
sage  who  was  the  ornament  of  two  worlds." 

Turgot's  epigram,  written  under  Franklin's  portrait  some  years  pre 
vious,  is  immortal  beyond  any  word  of  praise  uttered  by  Franklin's 
own  countrymen :  Eripuit  coelo  fulmen,  mox  sceplra  tyrannis.  The  words 
themselves  are  more  familiar  than  the  fact  that  the  latter  phrase  was 
prophetic,  for  Turgot  was  dead  before  the  American  Revolution  ended. 


1790.  THE   INDIAN   SITUATION.  151 


If  the  prospect  of  ameliorating  the  condition  of  the  blacks 
by  Federal  intervention  was  thus  discouraging,  more  hopeless 
was  that  of  civilizing  the  American  Indian.  Wherever  the 
fault  might  rest,  the  long  settled  policy  of  the  United  States, 
as  derived  from  the  several  Colonies  and  Great  Britain,  made 
the  aborigines  outcasts.  These  had  generally  been  driven 
westward  as  the  white  settler  advanced  into  the  interior. 
Like  the  panther  and  the  buffalo  they  were  commonly  regarded 
as  foes  to  civilization  ;  and  if  the  more  humane  of  the  Colonies 
paid  the  copper  tribes  for  the  release  of  their  hunting-grounds, 
yet  exclusion,  with  rare  and  temporary  exceptions,  had  been 
the  policy,  if  not  extermination.  Perm  and  the  first  Quakers 
had  been  shown  conspicuously  humane  in  their  dealings  with 
the  red  man,  as  were  now  their  descendants  towards  the  blacks. 
But  that  lively,  sympathetic,  adaptable  nature  which  gave 
the  French  settlers  of  Montcalm's  day  so  powerful  an  influ 
ence  over  the  savage  people,  was  not  inbred  in  the  Anglo-man, 
who  might  be  prevailed  upon  to  coax  rather  than  compel,  and 
yet  could  never  admit  the  red  man  into  his  heart.  The  result 
was  natural.  The  Indians  proved  treacherous  as  a  race,  in 
tractable,  fought  the  pale-faces  who  encroached  upon  their 
domains,  made  treaties  when  overcome  in  the  unequal  fight, 
only  to  be  broken  on  the  first  opportunity,  fought  again  and 
fled;  then  disappearing  for  a  season,  and  trying  to.  draw 
the  enemy  into  an  ambush,  they  would  stealthily  approach 
the  border  settlements,  apply  the  midnight  torch  to  the  fresh 
log-houses,  and,  with  loud  yells  and  tomahawks  uplifted, 
begin  a  revengeful  massacre  which  spared  not  even  woman  or 
babe. 

Whether,  then,  the  situation  were  peace  or  war,  our  Indian 
policy  had  for  its  cardinal  principle,  long  before  the  Consti 
tution  went  into  effect,  the  treatment  of  the  Indians  as  a  people 
whose  amalgamation  with  our  own  was  impossible.  The  choice 
of  measures,  where  the  interests  of  white  citizens  and.of  Indians 
conflicted,  lay  between  a  forcible  dispossession  of  the  latter  and 
the  making  of  treaties  so-called,  which  were  rather  like  con 
tracts  between  a  keen-witted  guardian  and  his  spendthrift  ward. 
Indian  grants  to  individual  settlers  could  confer  no  title  what- 


152  HISTORY   OF   THE   UXITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

ever  as  against  the  State,  and  our  people  claimed,  by  virtue 
of  discovery  and  colonization,  the  prerogative  of  extinguishing 
the  claims  of  these  barbarous  occupants  at  pleasure. 

The  public  rights,  as  well  as  the  public  responsibilities,  in  all 
dealings  with  the  copper  tribes  had  now  been  finally  trans 
ferred,  under  the  Constitution,  from  the  several  States  to  a 
competent  central  government.  And  upon  Washington,  as 
the  first  President,  it  devolved  not  so  much  to  initiate  a  policy 
as  to  conduct  the  well-established  one  with  due  honor  and  dis 
cretion.  The  situation  was  perilous  at  his  accession.  True, 
the  once  formidable  Six  Nations  of  New  York  were  now  dis 
banded,  and  the  State  had  by  prudent  conduct  so  divided  their 
counsels  as  to  secure  the  fertile  tract  they  once  occupied.  But 
the  main  body  of  Indians,  now  scattered  through  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  and  hovering  constantly  upon  western  and 
southern  frontiers,  appeared  fierce  and  unsubmissive.  The 
late  Confederacy,  unequal  to  its  appointed  task  of  keeping  the 
race  in  check,  had  unwisely  assigned  bounds  to  the  Indian 
country  without  making  compensation  for  the  territory  taken, 
while  its  imbecile  administration  had  encouraged  certain 
States  to  so  ply  the  tribes  of  their  own  vicinity,  in  defiance  of 
the  fundamental  law,  as  to  embroil  the  Confederacy  against 
its  own  consent.  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  too,  were  scheming 
to  keep  the  new  Federal  Union  under  the  saddle,  each  in  her 
own  interest;  the  one  holding  the  Northwestern  forts,  which 
ought  to  have  been  surrendered,  and  encouraging  the  neighbor 
ing  Indians  to  claim  as  their  own  country  the  whole  territory 
as  far  south  as  the  Ohio  ;  tfie  other  scheming  to  break,  if 
possible,  the  Saxon  advance  towards  the  Mississippi,  as  it 
proved  hopeless  to  seduce  the  trans- Alleghany  settlers  from 
their  allegiance. 

With  the  Mississippi  for  a  western  boundary,  the  Indian 
tribes  which  menaced  our  new  Union  comprised  two  grand 
divisions,  separated  by  the  Ohio  Kiver :  (1)  The  Northwest 
ern  Indians,  (2)  and  the  Indians  of  the  Southwest. 

(1.)  The  Northwestern  Indians,  at  Washington's  instal 
lation,  numbered,  according  to  varying  estimates,  from  20,000 
to  40,000  souls.  Of  these  the  Wabash  tribes  had  for  years 
been  the  scourge  of  the  new  Kentucky  settlers.  So  constant, 


1790.  THE   INDIAN   SITUATION.  153 

indeed,  was  bloodshed  and  retaliation,  that  the  soil  of  this 
earliest  of  States  beyond  the  mountains  acquired  the  uarae 
of  "the  dark  and  bloody  ground."  A  broad  river  interposed 
no  sufficient  barricade  to  these  deadly  encounters.  The  red 
man  would  throw  himself  upon  his  white  foe  like  a  tiger;  the 
white  pursuer  in  return,  shot  down  a  red  man  remorselessly 
wherever  he  found  one,  heedless  of  singling  out  an  offending 
tribe  or  individual.  What  with  their  own  inadmissible  claims 
to  territory,  and  this  continuous  war  to  the  knife,  all  the  tribes 
of  the  Northwestern  country  were  now  so  maddened  against 
the  United  States  that  the  first  imperative  necessity,  unless  we 
chose  to  abandon  the  "Western  settlements  altogether,  was  to 
chastise  the  Indians  into  submission. 

Fort  Washington  stood  sentinel  over  the  infant  settlements 
on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Ohio.  In  April  of  the  present  year 
a  hundred  regulars  from  the  fort  joined  a  party  of  Kentucky 
volunteers  in  a  march  to  the  Scioto  ;  but  finding 
the  Indian  camp  deserted  they  returned  without 
accomplishing  their  purpose.  It  was  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Scioto,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ohio,  that  marauding 
savages  had  of  late  established  their  rendezvous,  thence  pro 
ceeding  in  parties  to  waylay  boats,  plunder  and  shoot  down 
the  voyaging  settlers,  and  infest  the  shore  from  Pittsburg  to 
the  falls  at  Louisville. 

Major-General  Arthur  St.  Clair,  of  Ohio,  a  native  of  Edin 
burgh,  who  served  in  his  youth  under  Wolfe,  and  afterwards 
bore  an  honorable  though  not  wholly  fortunate  part  in  the 
Continental  army,  had  been  Governor  of  the  Northwest  Terri 
tory  from  its  organization.  Brigadier-General  Harmar,  who 
commanded  the  small  force  of  United  States  regulars  m  the 
Territory,  was  also  a  Revolutionary  veteran.  Our  frontier 
military  stations  extended  as  far  as  Vincennes,  on  the  Wabash, 
which  Major  Hamtranck,  a  Canadian  Frenchman,  commanded. 
The  British  commandant  was  at  Detroit,  whence  he  communi 
cated  constantly  with  the  Governor-General  of  the  Provinces, 
Lord  Dorchester,  by  whose  instigation  the  Northwestern  In 
dians  at  this  period  were  studiously  kept  at  enmity  with  the 
United  States.  "The  English  commandant  at  Detroit  is  our 
father,"  the  sachems  would  say  when  the  American  officers 


154  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

tendered  terras  of  peace  and  friendship,  "and  we  cannot  an 
swer  without  consulting  him."* 

A  formidable  expedition  against  the  Indians  was  determined 

upon  by  the  President  and  St.  Clair ;  and  in  the  fall  of  the  year 

General  Harmar  set  out  from  Fort  Washington  for  the  Miami 

country,  with  a  force  numbering  somewhat  less  than 

September.  ,1  /?        -i         /•      i  -V.L-          •       i 

1500,  near  three-fourths  of  whom  were  militia  raised 
in  Western  Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky.  Marching  north 
ward  to  an  Indian  village  by  the  name  of  Chill icothe,f  near 
the  Maumee,  General  Harmar  made  easy  conquest  of  the 
October  P^ace'  tk6  ^habitants  fleeing  at  his  approach. 
Cornfields  were  plundered  and  the  torch  was  ap 
plied  to  the  empty  huts.  But  Colonel  Hardin,  the  junior 
officer,  pressing  on  with  a  detachment  too  confidently  in  pur 
suit  of  the  wily  foe  was  drawn  into  an  ambuscade.  The  militia 
turned  their  backs  and  ran,  leaving  the  regular  troops  to  be 
mercilessly  slaughtered  before  they  could  draw  off.  After  a 
night  of  feast  and  dance  over  their  tortured  victims  the  Indians 
advanced  in  their  turn.  Harmar  had  set  his  face  towards 
Fort  Washington;  but  yielding  to  the  gallant  Hardiu's  advice 
he  now  sent  him  back  with  some  four  hundred  men,  chiefly 
militia,  to  surprise  the  Indians  at  the  head  of  the  Maumee. 
The  premature  discharge  of  a  gun  revealed  the  presence  of 
our  troops,  and  an  imprudent  pursuit  of  the  Indians 
by  the  militia  in  disobedience  of  orders,  so  as  to 
leave  the  regulars  unsupported  at  their  crossing-place,  com 
pleted  Hardiu's  discomfiture.  Little  Turtle,  the  famous  chief 
who  led  the  main  body  of  the  Indians,  drove  back  the  Ameri 
can  troops  with  great  slaughter.  In  Maumee  ford  the  bodies 
of  the  slain  were  so  numerous,  it  is  said,  that  one  could  have 
crossed  the  river  upon  them  dryshod.  Harmar,  when  in 
formed  of  the  disaster,  refused  to  prolong  the  contest,  having 
lost  all  faith  in  his  raw7  militia;  and  presently  the  army  re 
turned  to  Fort  Washington.  Thus  ended  a  fruitless 

Nov.  4.  .  i  •   i       T  i 

campaign,  winch  did  the   regular  troops  far  more 

*  See  Am.  State  Papers,  ix,  332-421 ;  Dillon's  Indiana  ;  Lossing's  War 
of  1812,  c.  2;  4IIildreth. 

f  Not  the  site  of  the  present  Chillicothe  on  the  Scioto.  Lossing's 
War  of  1812,  c.  2. 


1790.  THE   INDIAN   SITUATION.  155 

honor  than  the  militia  levies  or  they  who  commanded  the 
expedition.  A  court-martial  acquitted  both  Harmar  and 
Hardiu  ;  but  the  former,  who  was  suspected  of  showing  the 
white  feather,  presently  threw  up  his  commission.* 

(2.)  The  Southwestern  Indians,  though  more  numerous  than 
the  tribes  north  of  the  Ohio,  were  so  divided  in  interests  as  to 
give  Washington  less  anxiety.  Of  these  existed  perhaps 
70,000,  men,  women,  and  children  ;  the  chief  nations  being  the 
Chickasaws,  Choctaws,  Cherokees,  and  Creeks.  The  Chicka- 
saws  and  Choctaws,  dwelling  between  the  Tennessee  and  Mis 
sissippi  rivers,  had  kept  friendship  with  the  whites  under  an 
early  treaty,  and  were  still  too  remote  to  be  disturbed  by  our 
backwoodsmen  or  tampered  witli  by  foreign  emissaries.  But  it 
was  otherwise  with  the  Cherokees  and  Creeks,  two  powerful 
Indian  confederacies,  whose  situation  brought  them  into  close 
communion  with  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Florida  and  New 
Orleans.  These  had  made  some  advance  in  civilization,  carry 
ing  on  plantations,  in  some  instances,  and  even  copying  the 
manners  of  their  white  brethren  so  closely  as  to  keep  negro 
slaves.  The  Cherokees  laid  large  claim  to  territory  south  of 
the  Cumberland  River,  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Tennessee, 
and  to  portions  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  besides.  A 
partial  recognition  of  this  claim  by  the  Continental  Congress 
became  so  odious  to  the  Southwestern  States  concerned,  that 
they  proceeded  without  compunction  to  nullify  its  action,  and 
pushing  boldly  into  the  Indian  reserve,  the  white  settlers 
became  speedily  involved  in  bitter  warfare.  The  Cherokees, 
expelled  from  their  lawful  domains,  fled  to  the  Creeks  for 
protection.  But  the  Federal  government  now  interposed  with 
assurance  that  it  disapproved  of  an  outrage  for  which  North 
Carolinians  were  mainly  answerable;  and  the  Indians  awaited 
treaty  negotiations  with  "their  elder  brother,  George  Wash 
ington,"  which  only  North  Carolina's  non-accession  seriously 
hindered. 

Upon  the  Appalachicola  and  its  tributaries,  and  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Alabama,  dwelt  the  Creeks,  the  brave  Semiuole 
tribe  occupying  Northern  Florida.  Surrounding  Georgia  by 

*  See  4  Hildreth  ;  Lossing's  War  of  1812,  c.  2. 


156  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

land,  as  they  did,  and  well  supplied  with  rifles  and  ammuni 
tion  by  the  crafty  Spaniards,  they  were  a  formidable  people 
to  provoke.  Georgia  had  treated  with  them,  soon  after  the 
war,  so  as  to  procure  a  cession  of  lands  west  and  south  of  the 
Oconee  River.  This  cession  the  Creeks  presently  repudiated 
as  fraudulently  procured ;  and  most  assuredly  the  treaty  needed 
the  sanction  of  Congress  to  give  it  legal  validity.  But  hastily 
proceeding  to  take  possession  of  the  coveted  tract,  Georgia 
became  involved  in  hostilities,  which  the  Indians  pursued  with 
such  vigor  as  carried  terror  to  the  port  of  Savannah.  Self- 
protection  was  a  sufficient  motive,  even  had  their  pro-slavery 
efforts  miscarried,  to  bring  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  to  the 
arms  of  the  new  Federal  union,  exposed  as  were  their  frontiers 
to  imminent  dangers.  A  Spanish  alliance  strengthened  the 
Creeks  against  the  Saxons,  whose  good-will  they  had  lately 
courted. 

To  win  back  the  friendship  of  these  Southwestern  Indians 
while  the  northern  frontier  gave  so  much  cause  for  alarm  was 
a  task  to  which  Washington  promptly  addressed  himself. 
Congress  having  appropriated  at  its  first  session  for  Indian 
negotiations,  he  sent  commissioners  to  investigate  the  dealings 
between  Georgia  and  the  Creek  nation  and  compel  justice  in 
the  premises  ;  but  the  mission  failed.  He  now  made  a  second 
attempt  and  with  much  better  success.  It  appears  that  the 
leader  of  the  Creeks  was  Andrew  McGillivray,  a  half-breed, 
whose  Tory  father,  a  Scotch  trader,  had  been  impoverished  by 
the  confiscation  of  his  estate  in  Georgia ;  whereupon  the  son, 
a  young  man  of  education  and  trained  to  business  pursuits, 
fled  from  the  State  to  his  mother's  tribe,  and  presently  rose  to 
be  chief  in  the  Indian  confederacy. 

McGillivray  was  induced  this  year  to  visit  New  York  and 
negotiate  a  peace  on  behalf  of  his  people  while  Congress  re 
mained  in  session.  Accompanied  by  some  twenty-five  chosen 
warriors  he  reached  the  city  late  in  July,  where 
flattering  marks  of  honor  awaited  him  at  "the  great 
council  fire  of  America."  The  Tammany  Society  or  Colum 
bian  Order,  a  charitable  organization  recently  formed,  which, 
in  the  vicissitudes  of  later  years,  became  a  potent  force  in 
local  politics,  received  the  Indian  braves  at  the  Wall  Street 


1790.         TREATY  WITH  THE  CEEEKS.  157 

landing,  and  escorted  them  to  their  lodgings  at  the  City  Tavern 
with  much  ostentation  ;  Congress  saluting  the  party  from  the 
balcony  of  Federal  Hall,  and  the  President,  the  Secretary  of 
War,  and  Governor  of  New  York  afterwards  extending  in 
turn  an  impressive  welcome.  McGillivray  was  dressed  in  a 
suit  of  plain  scarlet,  the  other  warriors  appeared  in  their 
national  habit,  and  as  the  procession  moved  up  Wall  Street 
the  chiefs  sang  their  peculiar  song.  Tammany  names  and 
manners  imitated  those  of  the  Indian  country ;  and  while 
McGillivray  was  abundantly  flattered  on  his  mother's  behalf 
during  his  stay,  the  Scotch  side  of  his  character  was  gently 
assailed  by  the  St.  Andrew's  Society. 

The  day  after  this  Creek  delegation  arrived,  Washington 
approved  an  act  which  forbade  all  trade  and  intercourse  with 
Indian  tribes  without  a  license  from  the  President,  and  utterly 
prohibited  the  purchase  of  Indian  lands  except  under  authority 
of  the  United  States.*  Thus  carefully  oiled,  the  wheels  of 
negotiation  ran  smoothly.  Secretary  Knox  represented  the 
United  States  in  a  transaction,  which,  on  McGillivray's  per 
sonal  behalf,  recognized  his  more  than  Indian  keenness  at  a 
bargain  ;  for  a  secret  article  gave  him  the  salary  of  a  United 
States  agent  and  the  monopoly  of  furnishing  Indian  supplies. 
The  treaty  agreed  upon  was,  however,  beneficial  in  all  respects 
to  the  Creeks,  for  it  guaranteed  to  them  the  tract  south  and 
west  of  the  Oconee,  in  consideration  of  their  relinquishment 
of  territory  north  and  east.  This  first  of  our  new  Indian 
treaties,  duly  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  was  publicly  ratified 
in  Federal  Hall  the  day  after  Congress  adjourned, 
in  presence  of  the  high  officers  of  state  and  a  large 
concourse  of  spectators.  The  treaty  was  read  aloud  and  in 
terpreted  clause  by  clause,  the  Indian  chiefs  giving  assent 
after  their  usual  fashion.  The  President  then  signed,  after 
which  he  presented  a  string  of  beads  and  a  paper  of  tobacco, 
which  McGillivray  received  in  token  of  perpetual  friendship. 
The  shake  of  peace  followed,  and  the  ceremonies  closed  with 
the  Creek  song  of  peace.f 

*  Act  July  22d,  1790,  c.  33. 

f  See  Carey's  Museum,  New  York  Gazette,   Boston  Centinel,  and 
other  papers,  July  and  August,  17UO. 


158  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 


With  this  grotesque,  but  not  meaningless,  spectacle,  termi 
nates  the  history  of  New  York  as  the  Federal  residence  ;  for, 
after  Washington's  water  excursion  to  Rhode  Island,  he  re 
turned  to  the  city  only  to  make  hasty  preparations  for  the 
removal  of  the  government  to  Philadelphia,  and  then  pro 
ceeded  to  Mount  Vernoii  for  the  remainder  of  the  recess.  An 
other  stroke  of  illness  had  prostrated  him  in  the  spring,  and 
rest  and  recuperation  were  needful.  On  his  way  southward 
he  dined  at  Philadelphia  with  members  of  the  State  Constitu 
tional  Convention  and  legislature ;  and  that  same 
day  the  convention  went  in  procession  to  the  court 
house  in  Market  Street,  where  the  new  Constitution  of  Penn 
sylvania  was  publicly  read,  and,  returning  to  the  State-house, 
dissolved.* 

In  a  new  county  building,  wholly  set  apart  for  Federal 
Dec  6-Mar  3  use'  ^  ^rst  ^ougress  assembled  in  early  December 
'  for  the  work  of  its  brief  final  session.  The  chief 
matters  which  occupied  its  attention  were  Hamilton's  further 
plans  for  enhancing  the  public  credit;  plans  which,  as  hith 
erto,  the  President  left  that  officer  to  broach  and  urge  after 
his  own  choice,  contenting  himself  with  general  expressions  of 
a  desire  that  the  debt  be  eventually  paid  off,  and  calling  the 
attention  of  Congress  to  the  astonishing  rise  of  public  credit 
and  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country. 

Excise  and  a  national  bank  were  the  two  chief  themes  of 
Hamilton's  report ;  and  upon  his  strenuous  supporters  in  the 
House  devolved  the  initiation  of  measures  appropriate  to  the 
one  object,  and  in  the  Senate  of  those  appropriate  to  the  other. 
The  season  for  legislative  action  was  brief,  and  Hamilton 
lost  not  a  moment.  His  own  lucid  and  complete  exposition 
left  little  to  be  added,  whether  in  argument  or  detail,  as  to 
either  project. 

For  excise  the  case  was  clear.  The  assumption,  as  many  had 
foreseen,  made  recourse  needful  to  some  new  source  of  Federal 
revenue.  Imports  had  been  taxed  as  high  as  commerce  would 
then  bear.  Internal  taxation  was  the  next  natural  resource, — 

*  Carey's  Museum,  1790. 


1791.  EXCISE   AND   A   NATIONAL   BANK.  159 

a  means  of  income  which  States  had  found  available  while 
bearing  their  own  burdens.  Instead  of  the  comprehensive 
excise  law  Hamilton  had  asked  in  vain  at  the  previous  ses 
sion,  he  now  more  prudently  proposed  a  duty  on  native  die- 
tilled  spirits  alone,  at  the  same  time  increasing  the  tariff  on 
those  foreign;  thus  the  Federal  machinery  would  be  light, 
revenue  would  accrue  from  an  article  whose  extensive  con 
sumption  an  intelligent  part  of  the  community  would  gladly 
see  discouraged,  and  the  country  avoided  the  disagreeable  alter 
native  of  a  direct  tax.  State  rights  men  felt  that  the  halter 
once  slipped  on,  into  which  the  secretary  was  coaxing  them,  the 
whole  harness  must  speedily  follow.  But  the  new  tax  could 
not  well  be  opposed  on  principle  without  reopening  disputes 
already  adjusted  ;  the  public  credit  must  be  sustained  at  all 
events ;  and,  distasteful  as  the  measure  was  to  Peun- 

'  .  Jan.  1791. 

sylvania  and  the  feoutn,  its  passage  was  secured. 
As  Livermore  humorously  remarked,  it  would  be  like  "  drink 
ing  down  the  national  debt."* 

But  Hamilton's  second  project,  that  of  a  national  bank, 
aroused  an  intense  opposition.  Passing  the  Senate  with  the 
customary  secrecy,  the  bill  for  erecting  such  a  corporation 
reached  the  House  in  season  to  elicit  the  longest  and  bitterest 
debate  of  the  session.  European  nations,  it  is  true, 
favored  the  creation  of  such  institutions  as  part  of 
their  government  machinery.  In  Italy,  Germany,  Holland, 
and  France  national  banks  had  flourished ;  and  the  Bank  of 
England  was  to  our  countrymen  the  synonyme  of  financial 
stability.  Hamilton  had,  when  a  stripling,  planned  a  bank 
of  this  character  for  the  United  States,  which  the  Continental 
Congress,  under  the  advice  of  Robert  Morris,  actually  sought 
to  create ;  but,  convinced  that  in  this  Federal  authority  had 
transcended  its  powers,  the  iucorporators,  whote  location  was 
Philadelphia,  procured  afterwards  and  acted  under  a  State 
charter. 

The  anticipated  advantages  of  the  bank  Hamilton  proposed — 
at  the  present  time  were  chiefly  these  three :  an  increase  of 
the  active  capital  of  the  country,  greater  facilities  to  be  af- 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  January,  1791 ;  Act  March  3d,  1791,  c.  15. 


160  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

forded  the  Federal  government  in  exchanges  and  borrowing  for 
its  necessities,  and  the  supply  of  a  circulating  medium.  But 
iu  this  last  respect,  at  least,  the  present  situation  of  the  coun 
try  afforded  no  just  criterion  of  its  necessity,  for  the  mint  to 
be  established  this  session  would"  soon  supply  a  Federal 
coinage ;  and,  even  admitting  that  a  uniform  paper  currency 
was  desirable,  it  by  no  means  followed  that  the  nation  should 
combine  with  a  private  enterprise  to  secure  it.  The  secret 
machinations  of  so  extensive  a  moneyed  power  in  politics  were 
to  be  dreaded  ;  nor  less  the  draining  of  the  lesser  channels  to 
feed  one  great  reservoir.  None  doubted  the  usefulness  of  sound 
banks  well  distributed ;  such  institutions  were  now  operating 
at  the  chief  centres  under  State  charters  ;  others  could  be 
created  ;  but  ought  the  general  government  to  send  out  this 
dragon  to  swallow  up  all  the  others? 

Once  again  Hamilton  had  determined  to  carry  his  point  by 
an  unexpected  sally  in  force.  With  a  working  majority  at 
his  command  in  both  houses,  he  crowded  down  the  opposi 
tion  ;  for  he  always  preferred  heading  off  public  opinion  rather 
than  awaiting  its  pleasure.  The  minority  in  vain  asked  time, 
protesting  against  whipping  a  measure  of  this  importance 
through  in  the  last  short  mouth  of  an  expiring  Congress, 
when  haste  appeared  so  needless.  Compelled  to  meet  the 
bill  on  its  merits,  they  were  at  an  obvious  disadvantage. 
New  England  and  New  York  members,  the  ablest  financiers 
in  Congress,  supported  the  secretary.  There  was  no  time, 
perhaps  insufficient  skill,  for  devising  a  present  substitute, 
better  adapted  to  our  Federal  institutions;  and  the  only  germ 
of  a  sub-treasury  system  at  this  period  appeared  somewhat 
later  in  a  rough  suggestion  by  Jefferson,  that  government 
facilities  for  transporting  moneys  between  States  and  the 
Federal  treasury  might  be  obtained  by  treasury  drafts  upon 
the  collectors.  The  anti-bank  men,  thus  pushed  to  the  wall, 
found  but  one  strong  objection  available,  namely,  that  the 
bill  itself  was  unconstitutional.  To  this  they  mainly  trusted; 
and  Madison  who,  advocating  the  excise  bill  as  a  necessity, 
opposed  the  secretary's  new  fiscal  scheme,  led  in  this  argu 
ment.  There  was  no  power  expressly  conferred  upon  Con 
gress,  he  contended,  to  charter  banks ;  and  the  circumstance 


1791.  A   NATIONAL   BANK.  161 

that  in  the  convention  of  1787  a  proposition  failed  for  em 
powering  Congress  to  grant  charters  of  incorporation,  went 
some  way  to  show  that  the  intention  was  to  grant  no  such 
power  at  all.  For  this  objection  Hamilton  was  not  unpre 
pared.  True,  was  his  own  argument,  no  such  power  had 
been  expressly  conferred  upon  Congress,  nor  perhaps  had 
Congress  any  right  to  charter  for  canals  or  other  miscellan 
eous  purposes;  but,  besides  express,  were  implied  con-stitu- 
vioual  functions,  powers  incidental  to  such  express  objects  as 
the  collection  of  taxes,  the  regulation  of  trade,  the  borrowing 
of  money,  and  provision  for  the  common  defence.  A  national 
bank  was  "  a  usual  engine  in  the  administration  of  national 
finances,  and  an  ordinary  and  the  most  effectual  instrument 
of  loan."  And  upon  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  reliance 
might  be  placed  which  empowered  Congress  "  to  make  all 
laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into 
effect"  the  powers  expressly  vested  in  that  body.* 

This  novel  argument  of  implied  powers  which  bank  men 
urged  in  debate  carried  the  bill  triumphantly.  As  finally 
passed  this  act  chartered  for  twenty  years  a  bank  to  be  styled 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  with  a  capital  stock  to  consist 
of  ten  millions  in  shares  of  four  hundred  dollars.  The  United 
States  might  subscribe  two  million  dollars  of  this  amount, 
leaving  the  remaining  eight  millions  to  be  taken  up  by  the 
public.  Congress  pledged  itself  to  incorporate  no  other  bank 
during  the  term  of  the  present  charter.  The  bills  of  this  in 
stitution,  payable  on  demand  in  gold  and  silver,  were  to  be 
receivable  for  all  payments  due  to  the  United  States.  The 
directors  were  to  be  twenty-five  in  number  and  annually 
chosen.  Some  salutary  restraints  were  imposed  :  the  choice  of 
directors  was  confined  to  citizens  of  the  United  States;  dis 
count  rates  should  not  exceed  six  per  cent.;  the  amounts 
loanable  at  one  time  to  any  State  or  the  United  States  were 
prescribed,  while  loans  to  foreign  powers  were  utterly  pro 
hibited  ;  and  in  other  respects  the  act  regulated  the  character 
and  extent  of  the  bank  transactions.  Two  stipulations  were 

*  See  Hamilton's  Report,  1790;  Annals  of  Congress,  February  Ist-Sth, 
1791. 

VOL.  i.— 14 


1 62  HISTOEY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

of  especial  favor  to  the  public :  the  United  States  need  not 
pay  its  stock  subscription  at  once ;  and  individual  subscrip 
tions  were  payable  three-fourths  in  government  securities — 
this  last  provision  resembling  that  of  the  Bank  of  England 
charter.* 

The  President  was  so  much  impressed  by  the  constitutional 
question  here  at  issue  that,  before  determining  whether  to 
approve  the  bill,  he  requested  the  separate  opinions  of  Jeffer 
son  and  Hamilton  on  this  point.  Hamilton  elaborated  his 
former  argument  as  to  implied  powers.  Jefferson's  opinion, 
more  concisely  expressed,  favored  the  stricter  interpretation  ; 
he  laid  stress  upon  the  new  amendment  reserving  powers  not 
delegated  to  the  United  States ;  and  claimed  that  the  bank 
establishment  was  neither  "necessary"  nor  "proper"  within 
the  general  intent  of  the  Constitution.  The  bill  was,  however, 
finally  approved,  Washington's  policy  being  in  a  case  not  free 
from  doubt  to  leave  the  department  officer  who  was  mainly 
concerned  to  carry  out  his  own  ideas. 

The  efficiency  of  the  first  Congress  was  well  evinced  by  the 
quick  dispatch  in  its  brief  final  session  of  such  transcendent, 
not  to  say  unpopular,  legislation  as  excise  and  the  national 
bank ;  besides  providing  for  the  admission  of  Vermont  and 
Kentucky,  establishing  a  mint  in  Philadelphia,  and  passing 
the  increased  appropriations  and  various  miscellaneous  acts. 
The  regular  army  was  augmented,  to  enable  the  President  to 
prosecute  the  war  against  the  Northwest  Indians  ;f  for  couriers, 
arriving  in  the  course  of  the  winter,  confirmed  the  bad  tidings 
of  Harmar's  repulse,  and  the  alarm  of  the  new  settlers  on  the 
Ohio  was  increasing. 

Some  striking  peculiarities  of  our  first  legislators  may  be 
worth  noticing  before  they  are  dismissed  from  the  scene. 
Their  disposition  to  trade  off  sectional  differences,  even  to 
making,  if  need  be,  a  barter  of  human  rights,  their  ready- 
disposal  of  the  public  business,  and  those  general  qualities 
of  leadership  which  betoken  clear  heads  and  cool  hearts,  have 
already  been  instanced.  With  a  distinct  purpose  in  view  they 


*' Acts  February  25th,  1791,  c.  10  ;  March  2d,  1791,  c.  11. 
f  Act  March  3d,  1791,  c.  28 ;  Joint  Res.  March  3d,  1791. 


1791.  CHARACTER   OF   FIRST   CONGRESS.  163 

took  comparatively  slight  pains  to  posture  or  palter  for  popu 
lar  effect.  Senators  fortified  themselves  behind  the  injunction 
of  secrecy,  House  debates  were,  as  yet,  but  imperfectly  re 
ported,  and  even  the  Representative  respected  his  indepen 
dence  of  judgment  so  highly  that  by  a  large  majority  the 
House  refused  to  admit  the  right  of  constituents  to  bind  by 
instructions.* 

Honor,  patriotism,  and  a  sense  of  what  was  due  the  people 
whose  interests  had  been  committed  to  their  keeping,  induced 
this  Congress,  nevertheless,  to  make  the  grounds  of  its  action 
intelligently  comprehended.  In  the  tariff  and  funding  acts, 
for  instance,  appeared  argumentative  phrases,  by  way  of  pre 
amble,  which  explained  their  reason  for  the  enactment.  With 
still  greater  delicacy  they  took  heed,  certainly  at  the  outset, 
that  acts  whose  long  continuance  might  prove  oppressive  should 
expire  by  limitation  within  a  reasonable  period  ;  in  this  re 
spect  seemingly  over-anxious  and  apprehending  but  imper 
fectly  the  experimental  tendencies  of  an  unfettered  people, 
and  perhaps  influenced  by  a  singular  theory  of  the  day  among 
leading  statesman,  that  all  laws  ought  to  be  limited  to  a  single 
generation,  since  the  usufruct  of  this  earth  belongs  to  the  liv 
ing  and  not  the  dead.f 

As  yet  there  were  no  standing  committees  of  consequence 
in  either  House.  The  leading  principles  of  each  bill  were 
settled  in  advance  by  a  running  discussion  upon  resolutions 
offered  in  committee  of  the  whole,  after  which  a  special  com 
mittee  would  be  appointed  to  bring  in  a  bill  accordingly. 
This  was  a  tedious  process,  even  where  debaters  kept  so  closely 
to  the  point  as  they  now  did,  but  it  checked  cabal  among 
members.^ 

The  method  of  choosing  committees  differed  in  the  two 
houses  from  the  first.  The  Senate,  whose  presiding  officer 
was  not  of  its  own  selection,  chose  by  ballot;  but  the  House, 
content  with  the  privilege  of  electing  a  speaker,  concluded 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  August,  1789. 

f  3  Jefferson's  Works,  1789. 

J  Fisher  Ames  likened  their  clumsv  practice  to  applying  the  hoof  of 
an  elephant  to  the  strokes  of  a  mezzotinto.  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works, 
1789. 


164  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

after  the  first  session  to  permit  that  officer  to  make  up  his  own 
list,  a  trust  which,  as  the  numbers  and  influence  of  standing 
committees  grew,  became  of  vast  importance.  The  Senate 
had  its  secretary,  the  House  its  clerk,  and  there  was  a  chap 
lain  in  each  branch,  besides  a  doorkeeper  or  sergeant-at-arms, 
and  various  lesser  subordinates. 

As  to  official  intercourse  between  Congress  and  the  Execu 
tive,  the  course  first  fixed  upon  was  not  regularly  continued 
afterwards.  Washington  delivered  his  annual  messages  orally 
in  the  presence  of  the  two  Houses,  as  did  his  immediate  successor, 
formal  responses  following  after  the  manner  already  detailed. 
With  that  over-eagerness  to  magnify  their  special  importance 
by  establishing  close  and  mysterious  relations  with  the  Chief 
Magistrate  which  Senators  were  seen  to  have  displayed  at  the 
first  assembling  of  Congress,  a  minority  of  that  body  attempted 
to  procure  the  President's  personal  attendance  for  making  his 
nominations,  to  be  followed  by  a  ballot  taken  in  his  presence. 
But  this  was  not  approved  by  the  general  voice  of  the  Senate ; 
and  Washington  himself,  who,  at  the  first  session  sometimes 
consulted  the  Senate  in  person,  and  more  frequently  sent  the 
head  of  a  department  to  make  explanation  of  official  matters 
requiring  the  action  of  that  branch,  utterly  discontinued  the 
practice  upon  reflection,  substituting  the  rule  that  all  execu 
tive  communications  to  either  house,  except  the  opening  mes 
sage,  should  be  in  writing.  This  latter  course  better  preserved 
the  dignity  and  independence  of  the  Executive ;  for,  whatever 
the  public  advantage  in  requiring  ministers  of  state  to  attend 
the  open  deliberations  of  the  legislature  and  make  such  expo 
sition  of  the  administration  plans  as  to  fix  the  public  atten 
tion  and  induce  suitable  action,  there  can  be  none  whatever 
in  their  secret  affiliation  with  a  branch  which  sits  with  closed 
doors  and  can  but  partially  accomplish  the  executive  wishes. 
The  confirmation  of  all  treaties  and  appointments  vested,  how 
ever,  in  the  senatorial  discretion,  and,  notwithstanding  execu 
tive  communications  were  now  made  in  writing,  the  President 
would  still  ask  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate  in  form 
ing  an  Indian  treaty.* 

*  See  Annals  of  Congress,  1789-91,  passim. 


1791.  OFFICIAL   OATHS.  165 

The  form  and  manner  of  administering  the  oath  required 
by  the  new  Constitution  from  all  United  States  officers  and 
members  of  Congress  occasioned  the  first  reported  debate  as 
well  as  the  first  act  of  our  Federal  legislature.  Following  the 
indications  of  the  fundamental  law  itself,  the  form  adopted 
was  brief  and  simple,  being  nothing  more  than  a  solemn  oath 
or  affirmation  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
But  the  oath,  as  first  actually  administered  to  legislators,  nec 
essarily  anticipated  this  act.*  Upon  the  first  Congress,  or 
rather  the  Senate  branch  of  it,  had  devolved  another  consti 
tutional  duty  soon  after  assembling ;  namely,  that  of  separating 
all  the  Senators  into  three  classes,  whose  terms  should  expire 
in  two,  four,  and  six  years  respectively,  agreeably  to  the  idea 
of  gradually  changing  its  complexion.  This  classification, 
which  was  necessarily  determined  by  lot,  resulted  in  setting  a 
large  fraction  of  the  original  Senate  loose  at  the  expiration 
of  the  first  Congress,  remitting  to  private  life  more  than  one 
worthy  member  thrown  out  in  this  game  of  chance,  whose 
hold  upon  his  State  legislature  was  found  not  strong  enough 
to  compass  his  re-election. 

SECTION  II. 

PERIOD  OF  SECOND  CONGRESS. 
MARCH  4,  1791— MARCH  3, 1793. 

WE  are  now  to  trace  those  floating  elements  of  political 
dissension  whose  speedy  concourse  formed  the  basis  of  new 
party  combinations  in  America. 

At  the  fall  elections  for  Congress  in  1790  no  decided  symp 
toms  of  discontent  appeared.  The  country  was  prosperous 
and  Washington's  administration  commended  as  both  wise 
and  conciliatory.  Most  members  of  the  present  House  stood 
for  a  re-election,  and,  though  in  a  few  districts  where  the  ma 
jority  rule  prevailed,  repeated  trials  were  found  necessary,  the 
Federalist  candidates  commonly  carried  the  polls  as  well  as 

*  Act  June  1st,  1789,  c.  1 ;  Annals  of  Congress,  1789. 


166  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

at  the  first  election.  There  were  Anti-Federal  wounds  still 
uuhealed,  but  the  opposition  was  disorganized  and  feeble.  In 
the  more  prominent  measures  which  affected  the  Union,  Rep 
resentatives  had  sensed  well  the  views  of  their  constituents, 
and,  except  for  the  anti-amendment  blunder  of  Ames  and 
some  of  his  fellow-Federalists,  there  was  little  to  hurt  the 
party,  except  it  were  a  growing  dislike  of  men  with  aristo 
cratic  manners  who  were  for  carrying  on  government  in  the 
dark. 

One  private  act  of  the  second  session  had  provoked  more 
censure  than  it  deserved,  namely,  that  which  provided  for 
Baron  Steuben,  that  worthy  drillmaster  of  the  Revolutionary 
army,  the  necessities  of  whose  old  age  were  publicly  known. 
The  act  purported  to  adjust  contract  claims  for  his  military 
services;  nor  would  this  theory  have  been  disputed,  perhaps,  but 
for  the  circumstance  that  Steuben  was  the  nominal  head  of  the 
New  York  Cincinnati,  whose  mainspring  was  Secretary  Hamil 
ton  himself.  The  Cincinnati  still  appeared,  to  a  large  fraction, 
of  our  nation,  a  political  engine,  managed  in  the  interests  of 
centralism  and  privileged  orders.  Their  zeal  for  establishing 
the  new  Constitution  now  extended  to  ceremonial  homage,  and 
they  vied  with  the  Masonic  Order  in  appropriating  the  Presi 
dent  ;  the  birthday  observance  was  taken  tinder  their  own 
wing,  and  their  regular  4th  of  July  gatherings  in  the  chief 
cities  outrivalled  the  civic  festival.  Hence  the  appropriation 
for  Steuben's  relief  was  denounced  as  though  the  ribboned 
knights  had  taken  their  perch  as  a  body  on  the  nation's 
money  chest.* 

Late  in  the  fall  came  the  announcement  that  the  Virginia 
legislature  had  voted  its  disapprobation  of  assumption  in  a  reso 
lution  declaring  the  measure  dangerous  to  the  rights  of  the 
people.  In  the  Maryland  house  a  similar  resolve  was  passed 
and  then  rescinded.  Assumption  was,  doubtless,  unpopular  in 
this  quarter,  and  States  fell  to  bickering  over  the  shares  allotted 
them,  and  yet  the  compromise  arranged  in  Congress  could 
not  be  disturbed. 


*  Boston  Centinel,  New  York  Gazette,  and  other  papers,  Sept.-Dec., 
1790. 


1791.  POLITICAL   DISSENSIONS.  167 

But  now,  as  if  to  make  the  breach  wider  between  Massa 
chusetts  and  Virginia,  North  and  South,  nationalists  and  State 
rights  men,  the  whole  financial  legislation  of  this  final  ses 
sion  turned  in  the  interests  of  the  one  section  against  the  other. 
The  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  had  denounced  the  plan  of  a 
Federal  excise,  but  in  vain  ;  and  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
North  Carolina  were  not  slow  in  making  like  complaints 
South  Carolina  was  strongly  Federal  only  in  the  Charleston 
district,  which  Smith  represented.  Georgia  had  her  private 
grievance  against  the  administration  in  the  McGillivray  treaty. 
To  most  agricultural  constituencies  the  national  bank  seemed 
a  needless  monopoly,  gotten  up  for  enriching  the  jobbers  and 
speculators  of  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  and 
intrenching  official  favoritism  more  securely.  With  the  old 
diversity  between  Federalism  and  Anti-Federalism  still  re 
membered,  it  was  impossible  that  this  new  issue  between  the 
broad  and  strict  construction  of  constitutional  powers  should 
be  forced  far  without  bringing  new  parties  to  their  feet. 

In  this  new  sensitive  state  of  the  public  mind,  when  Virginia 
complained  that  New  England  and  New  York  city  were  car 
rying  everything  their  own  way,  the  attitude  of  Pennsylvania 
was  worth  watching.  That  State  of  violent  factions,  the  third 
in  the  Union,  at  first  co-operating  so  harmoniously  with  the 
Eastern  section,  was  now  gravitating  towards  the  South  and 
Virginian  domination.  Philadelphia  still  owed  a  divided 
allegiance,  so  far  as  gratitude  bound  her;  but  not  so  the  in 
terior  population  of  the  State.  In  anti-slavery  and  religious 
sentiments,  in  border  proximity,  in  social  and  commercial  in 
tercourse,  Pennsylvania  touched  the  Virginia  of  that  day  more 
closely  than  she  did  Massachusetts.  What  is  known  as  the 
Wyoming  controversy  over  lands  in  Northeastern  Pennsyl 
vania,  which  Connecticut  had  claimed  as  hers  by  Indian  pur 
chase,  and  tried  by  colonizing  to  wrest  from  Pennsylvania 
and  erect  into  a  separate  State,  greatly  embittered  the  popular 
dislike  of  New  England.  This  controversy,  which  had  gone 
on  for  many  years,  culminating  in  1790  in  disturbances  in  the 
new  county  erected  out  of  the  disputed  district,  that  was  known 
as  Luzcrne,  provoked  Pennsylvania  into  refusing  to  confirm 
the  Connecticut  titles,  and  reversing  a  policy  to  which  she 


1GS  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

had  previously  adhered  for  the  sake  of  conciliating  the  set 
tlers.* 

As  a  final  element  of  political  dissension  a  gradual  change 
of  opinion  had  been  going  on  as  to  European  politics,  which 
the  events  of  the  present  year  greatly  confirmed.  British 
sentiment,  we  have  seen,  thwarted  the  plan  of  a  commercial 
discrimination.  Our  Anglo-men  celebrated  the  king's  late 
recovery  from  insanity  by  wearing  the  "  restoration  hats," 
which  had  become  the  London  fashion.  And  yet  the  conduct 
of  England  had  been  perseveringly  such  as  to  alienate  the 
affections  of  her  late  subjects  farther  than  ever.  War  between 
Great  Britain  and  Spain  impended  in  1789;  and  the  Presi 
dent  improved  the  opportunity  of  urging  upon  the  latter 
power,  now  in  her  decline,  the  claims  of  the  United  States  to 
a  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  besides  seeking  a  cession 
of  New  Orleans  and  the  Floridas,  if  possible,  on  terms  of 
abiding  friendship.  At  the  same  time,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
then  sojourning  abroad,  was  instructed  to  repair  to  London 
and  sound  the  intentions  of  the  British  ministry  concerning  a 
full  and  immediate  execution  of  the  treaty  of  1783.  So  long 
as  the  danger  lasted  of  a  Spanish  alliance  with  France  or  the 
United  States  against  her,  Great  Britain  heard  our  complaints 
graciously,  though  still  procrastinating ;  but,  by  the  fall  of 
1790,  Spain,  unable  to  induce  France  to  espouse  her  quarrel, 
yielded  the  points  in  dispute,  and,  the  war-cloud  having 
passed  over,  the  channels  of  British  favor  froze  up  as  solidly 
as  before. 

France,  however,  and  the  cause  of  the  French  revolution, 
had  stirred  the  American  heart  to  its  depths ;  and  while  the 
President's  efforts  with  the  British  ministry  terminated,  as 
self-respect  compelled,  in  the  abandonment  of  all  effort  to  pro 
pitiate  or  obtain  justice  from  a  king,  the  dusty  tramp  of 
liberty's  columns  through  the  streets  of  Paris  seemed  part  of 
the  world's  procession  for  human  rights,  which  Washington 
himself  was  leading.  But  the  American  had  still  a  Saxon 
temperament,  and  the  feeling  gained  in  conservative  circles 
that  the  French  people  were  more  likely  to  dethrone  a  monarch 

*  See  4  Hildreth,  237-240 ;  Lii'e  of  Timothy  Pickering,  1790. 


1791.          SYMPATHY  WITH  FRANCE.  169 

than  establish  liberty  in  his  stead.  The  dream  of  a  constitu 
tional  monarchy  under  Louis  and  a  popular  legislature  was 
dissolving.  Neckar  had  resigned  the  treasury  in  despair  ;  the 
prudent  Lafayette  was  falling  from  high  influence;  with  the 
sudden  death  of  Mirabeau,  the  brain  of  the  French  revolu 
tion  perished.  In  the  National  Assembly,  now  rent  by  factious, 
the  violent  elements  daily  gained  ascendency.  As  for  France's 
amiable  and  unfortunate  king,  it  was  no  longer  a  whisper  that 
his  avowals  of  devotion  to  liberty  were  coerced  from  him,  and 
that  he  was  a  virtual,  prisoner  in  his  own  capital;  and  the 
caricature  was  not  without  force  which  represented  him  in  an 
iron  cage,  guarded  by  soldiers,  from  a  small  door  of  which  he 
appeared  reaching  out  his  hand  with  a  pen  between  the  fingers 
to  sign  the  new  constitution.  Late  in  August  of  the  present 
year  came  the  startling  news  of  the  flight  of  the  king  and 
queen  from  Paris,  followed  by  their  capture  and  return  ;  and 
while  the  bolder  half  of  republican  America  inveighed  against 
the  perfidy  of  monarchs,  the  more  timid  shrank  shuddering 
from  the  spectacle  of  a  fickle  populace. 

A  crisis  in  Europe  was  fast  approaching,  for  which  our 
countrymen  watched  with  intense  interest  and  distracted  senti 
ments.  Great  Britain  prepared  for  the  war  of  kings,  while 
France  proclaimed  that  the  cause  of  human  rights  was  her 
own.  Burke's  "  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution,"  which 
impressed  thoughtful  men,  was  offset  by  Paiue's  essay  on  the 
"  Rights  of  Man."  Both  of  these  pamphlets  were  extensively 
circulated  in  America  during  the  summer  of  1791. 

The  British  government,  perceiving  how  rapidly  the  United 
States  were  striding  to  power,  and  unwilling  to  foster,  at  this 
juncture,  the  resentment  of  a  republic  with  whom  France, 
Holland,  and  Spain,  her  own  enemies,  had  established  friendly 
relations,  decided  at  last  to  send  a  minister ;  and  accordingly 
in  August  George  Hammond  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  bearing 
credentials  from  King  George,  and  Washington  promptly 
appointed  Thomas  Pinckuey,  of  South  Carolina,  American 
Minister  to  the  Court  of  St.  James  in  return.  And  thus  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  were  in  full  diplomatic  relation 
for  the  first  time. 

Ail  era  of  great  government  changes  is  necessarily  one  of 
VOL.  i. — 15 


170  HISTORY  OF   THE   TINTED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

speculation  in  civil  polity.  That  comparisons  should  have 
been  constantly  drawn  at  this  time  between  our  new  Consti 
tution  and  the  systems  of  the  Old  World  was  perfectly  natural ; 
nor  can  it  be  thought  strange  that,  at  this  first  stage  of  our  own 
national  experiment,  while  the  European  pageant  was  passing 
before  their  eyes,  many  of  the  most  prominent  and  intelligent 
American  statesmen  should  still  have  praised  the  ivy-grown 
British  Constitution  as  the  strongest  in  the  world.  They  were 
born  liege  subjects  of  a  king  whose  allegiance  they  had  forsaken 
because  of  evils  not  inseparable  from  those  institutions.  The 
English  common  law  remained  still  the  foundation  of  our 
common  jurisprudence.  Whether  this  new  Union,  the  child 
of  mutual  compromise,  would  survive  the  eighteenth  century 
appeared  at  least  problematical  to  those  who  vexed  themselves 
chiefly  over  two  symptoms,  hostile,  as  they  thought,  to  a 
wholesome  nationality  :  (1)  the  rivalry  of  State  governments, 
and  (2)  the  broadening  of  popular  representation.  The  consti 
tutional  system  was  much  distrusted  in  this  first  aspect. 
"  Thirteen  strong  men,  embracing  thirteen  pillars  at  once," 
says  John  Adams,  "  and  bowing  themselves  in  concert,  will 
easily  pull  down  a  frail  edifice."*  "State  attachments  and 
State  importance,"  is  the  language  of  Gouverneur  Morris, 
"have  been  the  bane  of  this  country.  We  cannot  annihilate 
them,  but  we  may,  perhaps,  take  out  the  teeth  of  the  serpents."f 
Knox  was  no  Saul  among  the  prophets  when  he  affirmed  that 
"  the  State  systems  are  the  accursed  thing  that  will  prevent 
our  being  a  nation."^  As  for  the  second  aspect,  popular  gov 
ernment  was  thought  to  require  a  superior  ruling  set.  The 
susceptibility  of  Madison  to  "arguments  ad  populum"  or 
rather  to  what  we  now  designate  as  public  opinion,  had  im 
pressed  some  of  his  Eastern  fellow-members  unpleasantly  on 
their  first. con tact.§  Even  Jay,  pure  and  disinterested  as  a 
party  Federalist,  wrote,  years  after  he  had  left  public  life,  that 
"  the  majority  of  every  people  are  deficient  both  in  virtue  and 
in  knowledge. "||  Prominent  leaders  of  the  day  not  only  dis- 

*  John  Adams's  Works.  f  Van  Buren's  Political  Parties. 

J  Drake's  Life  of  Knox ;  Letter  to  Washington,  July  15th,  1787. 
$  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1787. 
||  John  Jay's  Correspondence,  1807. 


1791.     THE   AMERICAN   EXPERIMENT   DISTRUSTED.        171 

trusted  the  stability  of  the  government  they  were  chosen  to 
administer,  but  looked  to  see  it  braced  more  strongly,  at  no 
distant  time,  against  both  the  people  and  the  State  govern 
ments,  whose  combined  pressure  would  otherwise  bring  it  to 
the  ground.* 

Of  theorists  like  these  Hamilton  was  the  natural  leader, 
both  on  account  of  his  official  prominence  and  a  capacity  for 
bringing  the  desired  things  forward.  Hamilton  was  indeed  a 
remarkable  man,  and  his  constant  ascendency  over  the  wealthy, 
educated,  and  accomplished  of  all  the  northeastern  section  has 
been  approached  by  no  later  statesman  of  this  country  except 
Webster,  whose  character  in  some  leading  respects  might  fur 
nish  a  just  parallel ;  though  Webster  himself  could  not  have 
moulded  our  institutions  had  his  whole  heart  been  so  little 
bound  up  in  them.  Hamilton,  though -personally  uncorrupt, 
believed  in  statecraft  and  the  insidious  use  of  executive  patron 
age  to  attract  a  powerful  support.  He  wished  a  principle  in 
our  Constitution  capable  of^resisting  popular  influence,  and 
the  goodness  of  a  government,  to  his  mind,  consisted  in  a  vig 
orous  administration.  As  to  the  existing  State  governments, 
he  thought  them  an  obstacle  to  the  general  economy,  and, 
while  he  would  do  nothing  to  shock  the  public  mind,  he  hoped 
to  see  the  Union  in  time  triumph  over  the  State  governments 
and  reduce  them  to  entire  subordination,  dividing  the  larger 
States  into  smaller  districts.f 

Opinions  like  these  Hamilton  did  not  hesitate  to  express 

*  Of  America's  fresh  essay  at  imperium  in  imperio,  John  Adams 
wrote :  "  It  will  prevent  us  for  a  time  from  drawing  our  swords  upon 
each  other,  and  when  it  will  do  that  no  longer  we  must  call  a  new  con 
vention  to  reform  it."  9  John  Adams's  Works.  Knox  approved  the 
r.e\v  Constitution  witli  the  State  features  left  in  it,  but  only,  as  he  frankly 
observes,  because  he  did  not  see  how,  in  this  stage  of  the  business,  they 
could  well  be  annihilated.  Drake's  Lifeof  Knox,  Letter  August  14, 1787. 
Instances  might  be  multiplied  showing  the  wide  prevalence  among  Fed 
eralists  of  opinions  like  those  announced  in  the  text,  and  that  by  merely 
quoting  from  each  one's  contemporaneous  letters  and  writings. 

f  These  opinions,  adduced  by  Madison  and  Jefferson,  are  amply  con 
firmed  by  Hamilton's  own  writings  of  1787-1791,  whose  language  is 
substantially  quoted  above.  See,  also,  the  summary  in  Van  Buren's 
Political  Parties,  75-89. 


172  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

openly,  often  to  the  discomfiture  of  his  friends,  for  he  was  of 
a  frank,  generous  disposition,  and  felt  positive  that  time  would 
vindicate  the  justness  of  his  conclusions.  His  friend  and 
eulogist,  Morris,  says,  with  unquestionable  veracity,  that  Ham 
ilton  disliked  the  Constitution,  believing  all  republican  gov 
ernment  to  be  radically  defective  ;  that  he  admired,  neverthe 
less,  the  British  Constitution,  which  one  might  term  an  aris 
tocracy  in  fact,  though  a  monarchy  in  name ;  and  that  he 
confounded  republican  government  with  dernocratical  govern 
ment,  and  detested  the  latter  because  he  believed  it  must  end 
in  despotism,  and  be,  in  the  meantime,  destructive  to  public 
morality.* 

Hamilton's  intellectual  compactness,  that  comprehension  of 
the  strong  points  of  his  own  case  and  the  weak  ones  of  his  ad 
versary,  which  confirmed  his  station  as  that  of  the  universal 
prompter  of  his  party,  his  clearness  of  conviction,  his  prompt 
ness  and  energy  in  action,  must  not  blind  us  to  the  real  im 
perfections  of  his  mind.  He  was  in  no  broad  sense  a  states 
man  of  original  views,  nor  even  one  of  profound  sagacity  as 
an  adapter  of  foreign  ideas  to  the  unique  political  society  he 
lived  in.  His  genius,  if  genius  he  had,  was  that  of  an  administra 
tor,  and  he  was  a  consummate  advocate  of  whatever  policy  he 
might  choose  to  espouse.  The  plan  of  government  which  he 
had  presented  in  convention  was  nugatory  because  too  essen 
tially  British  for  the  American  people.  His  revenue  and 
tariff  measures,  his  pet  national  bank  schemes,  all  were  Brit 
ish  and  based  upon  British  experience;  not  necessarily,  how 
ever,  to  their  discredit.  Not  a  measure  of  legislation, — success 
ful  or  unsuccessful, — not  a  political  maxim  bears  Hamilton's 
name,  of  which  the  New  World  can  avail  to  teach  the  Old. 

Believing,  as  he  unquestionably  did,  that  the  new  Constitu 
tion  would  not  answer  the  ends  of  American  society  by  giving 
stability  and  protection  to  its  rights,  Hamilton  was,  neverthe 
less,  not  unmoved  at  the  present  stage  by  the  success  of  the 
new  Federal  experiment — a  success  altogether  beyond  what 
he  had  anticipated ;  that,  moreover,  of  his  financial  projects, 
had  made  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  the  hero  of  the  hour. 

*  3  Sparks's  Gouverneur  Morris,  260. 


o 


1791.         HAMILTON,   THE   FEDERALIST   LEADER.  173 

The  finest  achievement,  no  doubt,  of  Hamilton's  whole  life 
was  that  of  freeing  our  public  credit  from  its  prison-house  and 
teaching  it  to  soar.  The  praise  of  this  was  all  his  own.  He  had 
stormed  Doubting  Castle  and  conquered  Giant  Despair ;  but 
the  dungeon  bolt  was  not  drawn  without  loosening  bats  and 
vampires.  Having  gained  his  national  bank,  he  meditated 
fresh  triumphs  in  the  direction  of  a  strong  central  govern 
ment. 

Hamilton  was  arrogant  in  the  hour  of  his  strength.  On 
hearing* of  the  resolutions  passed  by  the  Virginia  House  of 
Representatives  concerning  assumption,  his  first  impulse  had 
been  to  crush  their  authors  by  the  arm  of  the  law.  To  this 
end  he  dispatched  copies  to  the  Chief  Justice,  then  holding 
his  court  at  Boston,  with  the  inquiry:  "Ought  not  the  col 
lective  weight  of  the  different  parts  of  the  government  to  be 
employed  in  exploding  the  spirit  they  contain?"  For  this 
was  the  first  symptom  of  a  spirit  which  must  either  be  killed 
or  it  would  kill  the  Constitution.  But  Jay  sensibly  replied 
that  Hamilton  overrated  the  importance  of  these  resolutions, 
and  that  the  nation's  proper  course  was  to  go  on  doing  what 
was  right  and  be  silent.* 

As  far  from  Hamilton  in  his  political  sympathies  as  the  op 
posite  pole  of  a  magnet  was  his  colleague  in  administration, 
the  Secretary  of  State.  Jefferson's  miud  was  original  in  its 
workings,  penetrating  and  sensitive  to  parsing  impressions  like 
a  daguerreotype  plate.  A  philosopher  and  experimentalist, 
he  set  very  little  by  the  past  as  he  contemplated  the  grandeur 
of  the  new  task  which  engaged  America  and  her  late  ally. 
"It  is  indeed  an  animating  thought,"  was  his  recent  language 
to  a  friend,  "  that  while  we  are  securing  the  rights  of  our 
selves  and  our  posterity,  we  are  pointing  out  the  way  to  strug 
gling  nations  who  wish  like  us  to  emerge  from  their  tyrannies 
also.  Heaven  help  their  struggles,  and  lead  them,  as  it  has 
done  us,  triumphantly  through  them."  "  The  ground  of 
liberty  is  to  be  gained  by  inches.  It  takes  time  to  persuade 
men  to  do  even  what  is  for  their  own  good."f 

With  the  same  sanguine  temperament  Jefferson  viewed  the 

*  See  Hamilton's  Works;  John  Jay's  Life,  November,  1790. 
f  See  3  Jefferson's  Writings,  1790. 


174  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

future  opportunities  of  America  and  the  ability  of  the  American 
people  to  shape  their  career  accordingly.  While  ultra  Fed 
eralists  in  Congress  spoke  of  the  Northwest  Territory  as  a 
tract  which  must  remain  a  wilderness  for  at  least  a  century  to 
come,  Jefferson  viewed  our  Confederacy  "as  the  nest  from 
which  all  America,  north  and  south,  is  to  be  peopled."*  While 
they  talked  with  bated  breath  of  erecting  better  safeguards 
against  popular  tumults,  Jefferson  asserted  that  "whenever 
our  affairs  go  obviously  wrong,  the  good  sense  of  the  people 
will  interpose  and  set  them  right. "f  While  their  distrust  of 
the  States  as  a  perilous  obstacle  to  Federal  energy  was  engen 
dering,  Jefferson's  eyes  viewed  the  States  as  a  conservative 
force  against  central  despotism,  and  the  jealousy  of  the  State 
governments  "a  precious  reliance."! 

Full  of  the  Paris  enthusiasm  Jefferson  had  come  to  New 
York  to  assume  his  official  duties,  expecting  to  find  there 
somewhat  of  the  same  glow  for  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity, 
In  this  he  was  deeply  disappointed ;  for,  welcomed  by  the  aris 
tocratic  and  wealthy  in  a  city  which  had  been  so  lately  the 
hotbed  of  British  Toryism,  and  entertained  in  hospitable  style 
like  his  official  associates,  he  found  British  tastes  and  ideas 
constantly  uppermost,  and  the  preference  expressed  for  a 
kingly  over  a  Republican  government.  "An apostate  I  could 
not  be,"  he  writes,  "nor  yet  a  hypocrite;  and  I  found  myself, 
for  the  most  part,  the  only  advocate  on  the  republican  side 
of  the  question,  unless  among  the  guests  there  chanced  to  be 
some  member  of  that  party  from  the  legislative  houses. "§ 

Quick  and  intuitive  in  his  perceptions,  of  intense  convictions, 
and  strongly  emotional,  it  is  not  strange  that  Jefferson  pres- 

*  I  Jefferson,  1786.  f  3  Jefferson,  1789. 

J  Jefferson,  March  loth,  1789. 

$  See  Jefferson's  Anas,  in  which  he  noted  various  incidents  which 
gave  him  this  impression.  Madison  relates  that  hoth  he  and  Jefferson 
weie  present  at  a  dinner  party  about  this  period,  where  the  discussion 
turned  upon  constitutional  topics.  Among  other  opinions  it  was  boldly 
advanced  that  the  hereditary  designation  of  a  chief  executive  was  better 
than  any  elective  process  which  could  be  devised.  Jefferson,  with  a 
smile,  stated  to  the  speaker  that  he  had  heard  of  a  university  where  the 
professorship  of  mathematics  was  hereditary.  4  Madison's  Writings, 
112,  written  in  1830. 


1791.         JEFFERSON,   THE   OPPOSITION   LEADER.  175 

ently  conceived  the  idea,  exaggerated,  we  may  presume,  that 
there  were  men  high  in  public  trust  who  cherished  actual 
designs  for  overthrowing  the  American  republic.  Beginning, 
while  the  national  bank  bill  was  before  Congress,  to  warn  his 
friends  against  "  a  sect  among  us  who  believe  that  the  English 
constitution  is  perfect,"*  and  expressing  his  trust  that  the  great 
mass  of  our  community  is  untainted  with  these  heresies,  as  is 
its  head,  he  presently  spoke  of  Hamilton  and  the  Vice-President 
as  leaders  of  a  British  faction,  whose  efforts,  more  or  less  secret, 
Avere  to  draw  America  towards  "  that  half-way  house "  of 
monarchy. 

Jefferson  employed  the  pen  with  vigor,  and  many  of  the 
epithets  which  he  later  bestowed  upon  political  opponents  in 
the  heat  of  controversy  clung  to  them  through  life.  How  far 
they  were  warranted  may  perhaps  be  gathered  from  what  we- 
have  already  written.  A  monarchical  faction  had  doubtless 
survived  the  Revolution,  but  the  prominent  men  in  power 
were  too  high-minded  for  a  conspiracy,  and  for  the  most  part 
only  speculated  with  a  vague  idea  of  what  America's  future 
necessities  might  prove  to  require.f 

The  evidence  upon  which  Jefferson's  first  suspicions  were 
based  was  partly  supplied  by  the  Vice-President's  imprudence. 
Watching  the  progress  of  events  abroad  Adams  had  become 
early  convinced  that  the  French  republic  would  fail,  and  in  its 
thirty  millions  of  atheists,  inspired  by  encyclopaedists  and 
economists,  he  had  no  confidence.  Being  a  man  of  extensive 
learning,  and  in  his  present  position  but  lightly  occupied  with 
affairs,  he  undertook  to  enlighten  his  fellow-countrymen  upon 
the  foreign  follies.  Hence  the  Discourses  on  Davila,  a  series  of 
letters  written  as  a  running  commentary  upon  an  Italian's  his 
tory  of  France.  These  appeared  in  Feuuo's  Gazette  at  Philadel 
phia  during  the  summer  of  1790,  and  were  copied  into  other 
administration  papers;  their  purpose,  much  obscured  by  pro 
miscuous  and  pedantic  rubbish,  being  to  direct  American  sen 
timent  against  the  new  idea  of  complete  equality  and  rights 
of  man.  Adams  succeeded  mainly  in  making  himself  very 

*  2  Jefferson's  Writings,  February,  1791. 

f  But  c.  1  llandall's  Life  of  Jefferson,  which  ably  presents  a  different 
view. 


176  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

obnoxious  by  a  publication,  which  others,  less  candid,  who  held 
to  the  same  ideas,  deplored  as  unfortunate,  thinking  that 
Adams  should  not  have  been  so  undisguised.  His  long  ab 
sence,  they  thought,  had  rendered  him  less  apprehensive  of  the 
temper  of  our  people  than  others  who  had  not  half  his  knowl 
edge  in  other  matters.*  Adams  himself,  in  later  life,  admitted 
that  Davila  largely  helped  to  destroy  his  popularity,  and 
wondered  that  he  could  ever  have  written  that  "  dull  heavy 
volume."f 

It  was  not  so  much  John  Adams,  however,  that  Jefferson 
antagonized  as  these  more  disguised  theorists  themselves  and 
their  favorite,  Hamilton.  Adams  occupied  a  niche  of  his 
own,  and  was  by  no  means  a  British  worshipper  after  his  Lon 
don  experience.  Adams's  strength  lay  chiefly  with  the  Fed 
eralist  rank  and  file,  who  well  knew,  as  also  did  Jefferson, 
that,  if  ambitious  or  wayward,  he  was  a  true  American  and 
incorruptible.  Notwithstanding  Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to  the 
bookseller  who  republished  Paine's  pamphlet,  presently  made 
a  pointed  allusion  to  "political  heresies"  which  had  sprung 
up  among  us,  which  letter  the  bookseller  at  once  printed  and 
appended  to  the  pamphlet  to  help  its  circulation,  the  es 
trangement  with  the  Vice-President  which  followed  was  not 
of  a  long  duration. 

Jefferson's  suspicion  of  Hamilton  and  his  set,  once  aroused, 
was  sleepless.  Originating,  probably,  in  the  free  table  talk 
of  convivial  parties  and  at  official  interludes,  these  impres 
sions  were  deepened  by  the  financial  policy  which  Hamilton 
was  unfolding  so  gradually,  and  official  jealousy  may  have  had 
some  agency  in  the  matter.  While  apparently  tranquil  he 
was  on  the  alert,  and  began  to  jot  down  in  a  diaryj  frag 
mentary  accounts  of  conversations  and  incidents  as  they  oc 
curred,  like  a  detective  set  to  work  out  some  plot  by  gather 
ing  up  circumstantial  evidence.  His  proof  was  necessarily 
circumstantial ;  and  here  Madison's  aid  was  valuable,  since 
the  latter  held  an  important  clue  to  Hamilton's  designs  from 
his  longer  and  more  intimate  acquaintance.  Jefferson  and 

*  1  Fisher  Ames,  46.  f  6  John  Adams's  Works,  1812. 

J  This  he  published  years  after  as  "  The  Anas." 


1791.  ORGANIZING   THE   OPPOSITION.  177 

Madison  must  have  came  into  close  accord  during  the  final 
session  of  the  first  Congress,  or  very  soon  after  ;*  and  a  vaca 
tion  trip  they  took  during  the  summer  to  the  borders  of 
Canada  together  made  them  intimate  associates,  political  and 
personal,  for  life.t  Though  ostensibly  bent  on  studying  rocks 
and  trees,  and  declining  all  public  demonstrations  as  they 
hurried  through  New  York  and  Albany,  it  would  not  be 
strange,  nevertheless,  if  opportunity  occurred  for  founding  a 
good  understanding  with  Clinton  and  Livingston. 

In  Madison's  new  development  was  nothing  strange  or  de 
rogatory  to  his  honor.  He  had  not  only  Jefferson  to  lean  upon, 
but  his  constituency  at  home,  his  State,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Virginia  delegation  in  Congress,  a  support  which  he  never 
disregarded.  He  was  never  the  administration  leader  in  Con 
gress  in  any  confidential  sense  of  the  term  ;  but  as,  perhaps, 
the  ablest  member  of  the  House,  the  one  certainly  who  had 
done  the  most  to  bring  in  together  the  Constitution  and  first 
administration.  No  issue  was  against  the  President,  but  rather 
with  one  wing  of  the  cabinet  against  the  other.  Though  Madi 
son  appears  henceforth  overshadowed  by  Jefferson,  he  reaped 
in  season  all  the  other  advantages  of  such  an  association,  and 
he  now  parted  company  with  Hamilton  because  convinced  in 
his  own  mind  that  the  latter  was  trying  to  administer  the 
Constitution  contrary  to  the  true  understanding  of  its  framers. 

Opposition  to  the  national  bank  and  other  schemes  emanat 
ing  from  the  treasury,  which,  upon  the  plea  of  implied  con 
stitutional  powers,  were  introduced  with  the  design  of  national 
aggrandizement,  was  the  immediate  purpose  of  the  new  polit 
ical  combinations.  As  a  means  of  reaching  the  people  on 
such  issues  an  opposition  newspaper  at  the  seat  of  government 
was  thought  desirable ;  to  which  end  Freneau,  a  spirited  writer 
and  no  mean  poet,  a  Princeton  college  mate  of  Madison  and 
Lee,  who,  in  the  spring  had  proposed  issuing  a  gazette  in  New 
Jersey,  was  induced,  with  the  aid  of  Lee,  to  establish  himself 
at  Philadelphia  instead.  Jefferson  aided  Freueau  by  appoint- 

*  About  May,  1791,  Madison  begins  writing  about  the  "partisans  of 
royalty,"  Madison's  Writings, 
f  iSee  4  Madison's  Writings,  112. 


178  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

ing  him  to  the  post  of  translating  clerk  in  the  State  Depart 
ment.*  Hitherto  the  influential  papers  in  the  United  States, 
ignorant  of  cabinet  dissensions,  praised  all  the  acts  of  the 
administration.  Of  these  Fenuo?s  Gazette  had  been  the  most 
prominent,  which  was  issued  at  New  York  in  1789,  and  after 
wards  travelled  with  the  government  to  Philadelphia. 

American  journalism  had  hitherto  been  rather  vapid  than 
scurrilous.  Each  newspaper  would  become  quickly  identified 
with  its  printer  in  the  public  mind,  and  editors  courted  the 
powerful  men  in  office.  There  was  too  much  rustle  of  brocade 
in  newspaper  descriptions  of  public  events  and  too  little  lively 
detail.  Local  news  were  imperfectly  reported,  and  a  reporter's 
lack  of  information  or  the  ambitious  attempt  at  fine  writing 
would  often  becloud  the  narrative.  The  reverend  doctor  who 
opened  college  commencement  exercises,  addressed  the  Throne 
of  Grace  "  in  one  of  the  finest  prayers  we  ever  remember  to 
have  heard,"  and  the  judge  sentenced  a  criminal  to  death  "in 
a  manner  which  did  credit  to  his  head  and  heart,"  but  what 
the  precise  language  was  could  not  be  readily  gathered.  The 
arrangement  of  the  columns  showed  little  enterprise  or  artistic 
skill.  A  leading  New  York  daily,  announcing  the  President 
elect's  arrival  "amid  acclamations"  one  day,  postponed  par 
ticulars  until  the  next;  and  receiving  later  the  Philadelphia 
papers  with  accounts  of  his  earlier  progress  worked  the  narra 
tive  southwards  after  a  crab  fashion,  which,  in  this  day  of  tel 
egraphs,  would  have  a  depressive  influence.  Extracts  from 
speeches  in  the  British  Parliament,  or  Congress,  or  from  for 
eign  books  usually  padded  the  space  not  occupied  by  public 
news  like  these, -advertisements,  contributions,  or  scrap  items 
of  fecundity,  fires,  lightning  strokes,  and  "  melancholy  events/* 
rendered  doubly  depressing  from  the  manner  of  their  narra 
tion,  f 

*  See  4  Madison's  Writings,  112.  The  newspapers  of  the  day  an 
nounced  Freneau's  New  Jersey  proposal  in  April,  1791,  and  the  Philadel 
phia  one  in  September. 

f  A  specimen  of  the  hyperbolical  strain  in  which  journals  of  this 
date  indulged,  particularly  at  the  South,  appears  in  a,  Baltimore  item 
of  May  3d,  1791,  which  went  the  customary  rounds :  "  There  are  some 
calamities,  in  their  nature  so  peculiarly  distressing,  ?vs  not  only  to  in- 


1791.  AMERICAN   JOURNALISM.  179 

The  best  feature,  perhaps,  of  these  newspapers,  in  the  gen 
eral  dearth  of  editorial  talent,  was  their  frequent  use  by  the 
most  eminent  public  men  of  the  day  as  a  medium  of  political 
information,  though  this  was  usually  under  some  academic 
mask,  which  set  the  public  to  guessing  the  real  authorship  of 
an  essay  from  the  ideas  and  style  of  composition.  In  one  of 
the  fairest  and  best  conducted  of  the  Federal  newspapers  of 
the  day,*  appeared  soon  after  the  adjournment  of  Congress  a 
series  of  able  essays  criticising  Paine's  Rights  of  Man,  and 
written  evidently  like  Davila,  though  more  temperately  ex 
pressed,  with  the  general  purpose  of  discrediting  the  French 
Revolution  with  the  American  people,  the  assumed  name  of 
the  writer  being  "  Publicola."  In  the  sensitive  state  of  the 
public  mind  these  essays  were  at  once  ascribed  to  the  Vice- 
President,  and  the  absurd  rumor  gained  some  credence  that 
Burke  had  prevailed  upon  him  to  take  up  the  pen  in  aid  of 
his  pamphlet,  j" 

While  these  political  movements  were  in  progress,  Wash 
ington  was  upon  his  Southern  tour,  stimulating  by  his  pres 
ence  the  Union  spirit  among  its  citizens.  A  three  months' 
journey  of  over  eighteen  hundred  miles  was  performed  in  his 

volve  individuals  and  particular  families  in  the  deepest  affliction,  but 
to  extend  their  baleful  influence  through  the  various  classes  of  a  whole 
community.  Amongst  these,  the  untimely  fate  of  the  much-lamented 
Mr.  S ,  of  this  town,  merchant,  may  be  justly  numbered,  who,  im 
pelled  by  the  ardor  of  youth,  and  a  fake,  alas  !  too  fatal,  sense  of  honor, 
on  Friday  morning  last,  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  the  preceding  day 

at  a  cock-fight,  met  Mr.  II in  a  duel.     Scarce  had  the  respective 

seconds  measured  the  distance,  when  the  winged  messenger  of  death 
flew  swift  to  execution,  and  by  the  first  fire  of  his  antagonist  Mr.  S — 
fell  a  lifeless  corpse  upon  the  sanguinary  field,  aged  26  years.  In  one 
instant  that  heart,  which  so  lately  glowed  with  filial  piety,  fraternal  af 
fection,  and  Heaven-born  philanthropy,  ceased  to  vibrate,  and  every 
vital  function  was  extinct.  On  Saturday  his  remains  were  consigned  to 
the  silent  tomb,  attended  by  an  uncommonly  numerous  train  of  weep 
ing  relatives  and  sympathizing  friends,  when  an  exhortation,  elegantly 
pathetic,  was  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  A ." 

*  The  Columbian  Centinel,  published  in  Boston. 

f  See  current  newspapers,  June,  1791.  The  real  author  of  the  "Pub 
licola"  essays  was  the  Vice-President's  talented  son,  John  Quincy  Adams. 


180  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

private  carriage  with  a  single  pair  of  horses  ;  health  and  good 
weather  favored,  and  everywhere  he  was  greeted  with  genuine 
hospitality  and  marks  of  respect.  His  course  lay  first  to  Sa 
vannah,  by  way  of  Fredericksburg,  Richmond,  Wilmington, 
and  Charleston,  thence  northward  once  more  to  Mount  Ver- 
non  through  the  interior  towns. 

Washington  had  abundant  reason  for  gratification,  both  with 
the  hearty  approval  accorded  his  administration  in  every  sec 
tion  and  the  genuine  prosperity  of  the  country.  "Every 
day's  experience  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,"  he 
recorded,  "  seems  to  confirm  its  establishment  and  to  render  it 
more  popular."*  Agriculture  smiled  with  abundant  crops ; 
the  manufacturers  of  New  England  and  the  Middle  States 
strained  their  facilities  to  comply  with  a  demand  constantly 
increasing  ;  commerce  unfolded  her  wings  and  sought  out  dis 
tant  ports.  The  Stars  and  Stripes  fluttered  in  Chinese  and 
Indian  waters,  and  a  fur  trade  was  opened  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  River.  A  year  had  passed  since  a  Massachusetts 
vessel,  the  "Columbia,"  which  set  sail  in  1787  on  a  voyage 
of  adventure  to  the  northwest  coast  of  America  in  company 
with  a  sloop,  reached  the  port  of  Boston  after  an  eventful 
cruise;  and  this  was  the  first  circumnavigation  of 

Aug.  0,  1790.      ,          ,    ,  ,      ,  .  ,      i 

the  globe  ever  made  by  American  vessels.y 
All  classes  of  our  citizens  had  become  attached  to  the  new 
Union,  while  abroad  it  constantly  gained  respect.  A  loan  of 
3,000,000  florins  to  replace  the  old  foreign  debt  had  been 
quickly  raised  in  Holland  at  5J  per  cent.,  inclusive  of  ex 
penses.  Our  internal  prosperity  strongly  contrasted  with  the 
uneasiness  and  depression  of  European  powers.  American 
debt  certificates,  bearing  interest,  were  at  par.  Public  credit, 
in  fact,  stood  now  on  a  basis  which  three  years  earlier  it  would 
have  been  madness  to  auticipate.J  For  this  general  revival 
of  confidence  the  praise  was  turning  heartily  to  Hamilton,  the 
fundamental  idea  of  whose  financial  policy  was  doubtless  the 
right  one.  His  national  bank  was,  under  these  circumstances, 
an  assured  success.  Subscriptions  came  in  rapidly  at  the  large 

*  Washington's  Writings,  1791. 

f  See  Carey's  Museum  ;  Boston  Centinel. 

j  Washington's  Writings,  July,  1791. 


1791.  NATIONAL  B.1NK  SUBSCRIPTIONS.  181 

financial  centres.  Certain  States  loaned  their  credit  to  the 
enterprise;  Massachusetts  more  prudently  refraining  through 
the  Hancock  influence,  a  preference  for  State  creditors,  and 
the  feeling  that  such  government  alliances  were  of  doubtful 
propriety.  On  the  day  of  July  announced  for  formally  open 
ing  the  subscription  in  Philadelphia,  capitalists  crowded  about 
the  door  of  the  building,  and  in  less  than  an  hour  the  whole 
25,000  shares  were  taken  up,  while  offers  for  4500  in  excess 
had  to  be  refused.  Before  this  year  closed  the  stock  had 
risen  as  high  one  time  as  $200  for  $50  paid  in.  The  first 
choice  of  directors  was  held  in  October;  and  the  anti-bank 
men  beheld  Fisher  Ames,  Rufus  King,  John  Lawrence,  and 
William  Smith,  members  who  had  helped  the  bank  bill 
through  Congress,  elected  to  the  board.  The  new  Massachu 
setts  Senator,  George  Cabot,  was  offered  the  presidency,  but, 
with  more  delicate  appreciation  of  his  duties  to  the  State,  that 
eminent  merchant  declined  the  honor,  and  Thomas  Willing, 
of  Philadelphia,  lately  president  of  the  Bank  of  North  Amer 
ica,  was  chosen  instead.  Branches  of  the  bank  were  estab 
lished  in  Boston,  New  York,  Baltimore,  and  Charleston,  and 
took  part  of  the  specie  capital.  The  Philadelphia  business 
was  opened  at  Carpenters'  Hall.* 

One  important  duty  which  engaged  the  President's  attention 
during  part  of  the  recess  related  to  the  purchase  and  survey 
of  the  new  Federal  city.  The  site  chosen  on  the  Potomac  by 
himself  and  the  commissioners,  in  conformity  with  law,  lay  a 
few  miles  to  the  north  of  Mount  Vernon  on  the  Maryland 
side  of  the  river,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Eastern  Branch,  and 
just  below  Georgetown.  The  tradition  goes  that,  while  a 
young  surveyor  scouring  the  neighboring  country,  Wash 
ington  had  marked  the  advantages  of  this  spot  for  a  great 
city ;  and  perchance,  as  a  British  regimental  officer,  he  dreamed 
of  giving  it  a  name  the  night  he  encamped  with  a  part  of 
Braddock's  forces  on  the  hill  where  now  stands  the  National 
Observatory.  Here  the  Potomac  broadened  a  full  mile,  so  as 
to  form  a  spacious  harbor  106  miles  above  its  mouth,  where 
large  vessels  could  ride  at  anchor.  The  eastern  bank  was  a 


*  See  Carey's  Museum  ;  Boston  Centinel ;  Westcott's  Philadelphia. 


182  HISTORY  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

rolling  plain,  diversified  with  small  streams  and  sycamore 
groves,  and  rising  gradually  in  the  background  until  it  met 
the  heights  of  Georgetown,  and  ran  off  into  a  country  of 
wooded  hills.  On  the  northwest  flowed  Rock  Creek,  and  a 
few  miles  above  Georgetown  were  the  Falls  of  the  Potomac  ; 
and  these  afforded  good  mill-power,  besides  securing  a  supply 
of  pure  drinking-water  at  a  trifling  cost,  which  a  popula 
tion  of  millions  would  not  exhaust.  The  entire  soil  belonged 
in  large  parcels  to  a  few  plain,  easy,  Maryland  farmers,  who  rode 
over  to  Georgetown  for  their  flour  and  bacon.  One  of  these 
only,  David  Burns,  was  obstinate  about  making  terms ;  and 
the  subsequent  rise  of  land  in  the  western  quarter  of  the  city, 
which  his  farmhouse  now  occupied,  rendered  his  little  daughter 
in  time  the  heiress  of  \Vashington,  and  confirmed  his  claims 
to  historical  consideration  as  the  most  conspicuous  grantor  of 
the  National  Capital. 

For  procuring  this  choice  spot  on  behalf  of  his  countrymen, 
the  President  conducted  the  negotiations  in  person,  and  the 
purchase  of  the  Federal  city  was  concluded  upon  just  and 
even  generous  terms.  Each  owner  surrendered  his  real  estate 
to  the  United  States  with  no  restriction  except  that  of  retain 
ing  every  alternate  lot  for  himself.  The  government  was  per 
mitted  to  reserve  all  tracts  specially  desired  at  £25  an  acre, 
while  the  land  for  avenues,  streets,  and  alleys  should  cost 
nothing.  Thus  the  Federal  Capital  came  to  the  United  States 
as  substantially  a  free  conveyance  of  half  the  fee  of  the  soil  in 
consideration  of  the  enhanced  value  expected  for  the  other 
half.  The  choice  reservations  for  our  public  buildings  were 
cheaply  gained  at  $100  for  the  acre;  and  the  clear  acquisi 
tion  of  soil  for  highways  must  doubtless  have  furthered  the 
plan  of  making  them  as  numerous  and  as  wide  as  possible, — an 
advantage  if  the  capital  should  ever  become  populous,  but 
meantime  a  heavy  burden.* 

Major  1'Enfant,  a  French  architect,  was  selected  to  plan 
and  lay  out  the  new  city.  The  highways  were  mapped  and 
bounded  substantially  as  they  exisf  at  this  day,  being  so 
spacious  and  so  numerous  in  comparison  with  building  lots 

*  See  10  Washington's  Writings,  March  31st,  1791. 


1791.  THE  NEW  FEDERAL  CITY.  183 

as  to  have  admitted  of  no  later  change,  in  the  course  of  a  cen 
tury,  except  in  the  prudent  direction  of  parking,  enlarging  side 
walks,  and  leaving  little  plats  in  front  of  houses  to  be  privately 
cared  for.  Streets  running  due  north  and  south  from  the 
^northern  boundary  to  the  Potomac  were  intersected  at  right 
angles  by  others  which  extended  east  and  west.  To  mar  the 
simplicity  of  this  plan,  however,  which  so  far  resembled  that 
of  Philadelphia,  great  avenues,  160  feet  wide,  were  run  diago 
nally,  radiating  like  spokes,  from  such  main  centres  as 
Capitol  Hill  and  the  President's  house ;  and  thereby  a  map 
of  the  city  was  rendered  not  unlike  a  Scotch  plaid  overlaid 
with  small  wheels.  One  object  of  these  avenues  was  perhaps 
convenience  of  short  cut  to  the  chief  government  buildings, 
but  military  reasons  probably  operated  besides  ;  and  in  con 
sequence  immense  public  squares  and  awkward  triangular  lots 
were  left  at  the  intersections.* 

This  new  Capital,  by  the  President  modestly  styled  "the 
Federal  City,"  but  to  which  the  commissioners,  by  general 
acclamation,  proceeded  in  September  to  affix  his  illustrious 
name,  was  America's  first  grand  essay  at  a  metropolis  in  ad 
vance  of  inhabitants.  Peter  the  Great  had  conjured  a  capital 
out  of  a  bog  to  commemorate  the  greatness  of  his  reign. 
Constantino's  earlier  example  attests  the  stimulating  influ 
ences  which  may  proceed  from  a  place  honored  as  the  seat  of 
government.  There  was  in  this  moment  of  pride  and  pros 
perity  a  widespread  belief  that  pomp  and  circumstance  would 
presently  attend  a  splendid  national  administration.  Public 
credit  inflated  the  souls  it  uplifted.  From  fears  of  party  vicis 
situdes,  of  a  coarse-grained  democracy,  and  that  envy  of  rank 
ami  distinction  which  is  the  bane  of  republics,  our  public 
leaders  turned  in  fond  imagination,  to  repeat  the  story  of  that 
Tyrian  city  where  the  work  of  building  walls,  rolling  up 
rocks,  and  laying  out  the  courts,  the  theatres,  and  the  senate- 
house,  went  bravely  on,  and  where  the  deeds  of  warriors  world- 
renowned  were  promptly  delineated  in  the  new  temple. 
Washington  city  was  to  be  the  sure  abode  of  greatness  ;  art 

*  According  to  recent  estimates,  54  per  cent,  of  the  area  of  Washing 
ton  city  is  given  up  to  streets  and  squares,  against  25  per  cent,  in  Paris, 
afld  35  per  cent,  in  Vienna. 


184  HISTORY   OF   TUE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

and  science  would  there  find  a  home,  and  Columbia's  heroic 
sons  a  lasting  panegyrist.  Into  the  lap  of  her  only  child  the 
nation  was  expected  to  pour  her  most  abundant  treasures. 
A  magnificent  park  was  planned,  historical  columns,  statues, 
public  fountains.  To  each  State  was  to  be  assigned  an  appro 
priate  square  for  beautifying  as  it  might.  A  national  church, 
where  all  sects  might  worship  together,  figured  among  the 
imaginary  improvements  of  this  transatlantic  Rome. 

The  founder  himself  entered  with  unwonted  ardor  into  the 
plans  projected  for  developing  this  the  new  Capital.  Not  only 
did  he  picture  the  city  which  bore  his  name  as  an  instructor 
of  the  coming  youth  in  lessons  of  lofty  patriotism,  but  he 
prophesied  for  it  national  greatness  apart  from  its  growth  as 
the  repository  of  the  nation.  He  believed  it  would  become 
a  prosperous  commercial  city,  its  wharves  studded  with  sails, 
enjoying  all  the  advantages  of  Western  traffic  by  means  of  a 
canal  linking  the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivers,  so  as  to  bring 
Western  produce  to  the  seaboard. 

The  ten-mile  square  which  comprised  the  territorial  District 
of  Columbia,  inclusive  of  the  Capital,  stretched  across  the 
Potomac,  taking  Georgetown  from  the  Maryland  jurisdiction, 
and  Alexandria  from  Virginia;  two  towns  of  fair  population, 
quite  alike  in  appearance,  each  ranging  up-hill,  with  brick 
dwelling-houses  and  a  polished  resident  society,  each  engaged  in 
a  small  commerce.  The  first  corner-stone  of  this  new  Federal 
district  was  publicly  laid  with  Masonic  ceremonies,  and  though 
the  auction  sale  of  city  lots  in  autumn  proved  disappointing, 
the  idea  prevailed  that  the  government  would  gain  from  indi 
vidual  purchasers  in  Washington  city  a  fund  ample  enough 
for  erecting  there  all  the  public  buildings  at  present  needed. 

The  second  Congress  met  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  24th  of 
October,  as  the  law  provided,  and  a  quorum  of  both  Houses 
was  present  on  the  first  day.  The  first  session  extended  to 
May  9th,  1792. 

The  political  composition  of  the  new  legislature  had  not 
greatly  altered,  but  there  were  some  notable  changes.  Among 
the  Senators  retired  by  lot  were  Dalton,  of  Massachusetts,  and 
General  Schuyler,  of  New  York,  succeeded  by  men  whom 


1791-92.  THE   SECOND   CONGRESS.  185 

after  events  made  unfavorably  conspicuous,  though  of  quite 
differing  types.  George  Cabot,  who  had  begun  by  declining 
the  presidency  of  the  National  Bank,  ended  his  present  career 
with  accepting  the  charge  of  its  Boston  branch.  Though  not 
brilliant,  he  was  a  man  of  sound  parts  and  a  good  financier ; 
indolent  and  despondent,  however,  and  placed  as  best  pleased 
him  when  without  public  responsibility  as  the  adviser  of  pub 
lic  men.  But  Aaron  Burr  was  brilliant,  intriguing,  captivat 
ing  in  manners,  a  systematic  seducer  of  women,  and  one  whose 
restless  ambition  was  the  more  dangerous  because  of  his  utter 
want  of  conscience  and  generosity.  He  was  socially  well-con 
nected  and  had,  like  Hamilton,  won  a  fair  military  reputation 
in  the  war  for  a  young  officer,  gaining  later  distinction  as  an 
advocate  at  the  New  York  bar,  where  these  two  were  profes 
sional  competitors  under  an  act  which  disqualified  all  Tory 
practitioners.  Burr's  election  to  the  Senate  at  this  time,  in 
Schuyler's  place,  was  due  to  the  talent  and  adroitness  with 
which  he  had  availed  himself  of  a  feud  in  the  rival  families 
who  managed  the  politics  of  the  State  ;  Chancellor  Livingston, 
as  it  appears,  having  taken  offence  at  the  administration.  Of 
the  Vermont  Senators,  Moses  Robinson  was  lately  the  gov 
ernor  of  that  newly  fledged  State. 

In  the  House  appeared  Jonathan  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey,  a 
delegate  in  the  Convention  of  1787,  and  a  family  connection 
of  Burr's.  Scott,  of  Western  Pennsylvania,  did  not  return. 
The  stentorian  Jackson  had  nearly  lost  his  place,  for  "  Mad 
Anthony  Wayne"  presented  credentials  in  his  stead;  but  an 
election  contest  ended  in  unseating  Wayne,  who  was  reserved 
for  a  new  military  emergency  where  he  could  be  of  far  more 
service  to  his  country.  A  noticeable  member  of  the  new 
House  was  William  B.  Giles,  a  Virginian,  whose  career  had 
commenced,  like  that  of  Monroe,  too  late  in  the  preceding 
Congress  to  attract  attention,  but  who  now,  like  his  indus 
trious  and  high-spirited  co-worker  in  the  Senate,  advanced 
Virginia  ideas  with  vigor  and  boldness.  He  was  one  of  those 
stalwart  champions  of  party  principles  who  do  good  service  in 
the  line,  but  seldom  rise  to  be  commanders. 

In  organizing  the  new  House  a  change  was  made  in  the 
Speakership.  Muhlenberg,  whose  tendency  was  towards  the 
VOL.  i. — 1C 


186  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

opposition,  was  supplanted  by  Jonathan  Trumbull,  of  Connec 
ticut,  a  strong  Federalist  and  a  man  of  sterling  worth. 

The  tendency  to  new  party  combinations  was  at  once  mani 
fest,  notwithstanding  a  dearth  of  important  issues.  New  Eng 
land,  and  especially  Massachusetts,  led  the  Northern  forces; 
Virginia  the  Southern.  Hamilton's  financial  measures  had 

o 

given  the  lines  a  geographcal  direction,  but  the  slavery  ques 
tion  had  no  perceptible  influence.  Eastern  men  now  quickly 
perceived  that  Madison  and  the  Virginia  delegates  were  gen 
erating  a  distrust  of  the  Treasury  Department.  "  Tranquillity 
has  smoothed  the  surface,"  writes  Ames,  "  but  faction  glows 
within  like  a  coal-pit,"* 

Hamilton  had  not,  in  fact,  meant  that  Congress  should 
meet  and  adjourn  without  taking  another  step  in  his  favorite 
direction  of  paternal  government.  He  had  prepared  an  elabo 
rate  and  masterly  report  on  American  manufactures;  and, 
notwithstanding  the  President's  opening  statement  that  the 
product  of  the  Federal  revenue  was  adequate  for  all  necessi 
ties,  the  secretary  undertook  that  the  tariff  should  be  revised, 
or  else  bounties  bestowed,  in  the  immediate  interest  of  native 
manufactures.  It  was  less  the  immediate  object  of  protection 
than  Hamilton's  language  in  this  report  to  which  the  oppo 
sition,  prodded  by  Jefferson,  took  quick  exception,  and  the 
whole  scheme,  to  the  author's  mortification,  went  over  without 
action. 

Once  more  laying  hold  of  the  "general  welfare"  clause 
of  the  Constitution,  Hamilton  had  here  argued,  under  color  of 
giving  bounties  to  manufactures,  as  though  Congress  might 
take  under  its  own  management  everything  which  that  body 
should  pronounce  to  be  for  the  general  welfare,  provided  only 
it  was  susceptible  of  the  application  of  money.  To  use  his 
own  words :  "  It  is  therefore  of  necessity  left  to  the  discretion 
of  the  national  legislature  to  pronounce  upon  the  objects  which 
concern  the  general  welfare,  and  for  which,  under  that  de 
scription,  an  appropriation  of  money  is  requisite  and  proper." 
Though  he  limited  this  central  discretion  to  the  application 
of  money,  and  stated  some  restrictions  rather  vaguely,  the 


See  1  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  November,  1791. 


1791-92.    HAMILTON'S  REPORT  ON  MANUFACTURES.    187 

insidious  tenor  of  his  report  was  to  show  that  (with  constitu 
tional  limits  as  to  capitation,  taxes  on  exports  and  uniformity) 
the  Federal  power  of  raising  money  was  plenary  and  indefi 
nitely  great. 

A  cardinal  feature  of  this  report  was  the  recommendation 
that  national  protection  be  given  American  industries  by  a 
system  of  bounties  in  preference  to  laying  duties  of  a  prohibi 
tive  character.  A  repeal  of  all  duties  on  imported  cotton  as 
a  raw  material  of  manufacture  was  recommended.  The  sec 
retary  further  enumerated  and  classified  seventeen  maiiufec- 
turing  industries  in  America  as  already  carried  on,  so  as  fairly 
to  supply  the  home  market  and  settle  into  regular  trades; 
this  gave  his  report  an  immense  statistical  value,  and  in 
creased  Hamilton's  influence  among  the  citizens  whose  interests 
were  so  ably  championed,  while  proportionately  strengthen 
ing  the  agricultural  opposition  he  had  already  provoked.* 

Unexpected  tidings  from  the  Indian  country,  to  be  pres 
ently  detailed,  drew  Congress  to  consent  late  in  the  session  to 
an  increase  of  the  tariff,  which  incidentally  favored  some  of 
the  industries  Hamilton  had  mentioned. f  It  was  yet  too  early 
for  protection  to  become  a  serious  policy  on  the  part  of  gov 
ernment  ;  but  this  report  of  1791  furnished  the  armory  of  a 
political  party  long  years  after  its  author  had  passed  away. 
As  an  offset  to  the  increased  tariff,  Congress  reduced  some 
what  the  excise  on  distilled  spirits,  so  as  to  make  it  more 
acceptable,  if  possible,  to  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Penn 
sylvania  and  North  Carolina,  who  were  very  uneasy  under 
it.  Petitions  poured  in  complaining  that  the  excise  act  con 
travened  private  rights,  by  subjecting  citizens  to  an  odious 
search,  oppressing  them  with  penalties,  and  interfering  with 
their  business.  The  secretary's  advice  having  been  called 
for,  he  defended  the  act  in  principle  and  detail,  but  recom 
mended  the  alterations  substantially  as  Congress  had  agreed 
to  them. |  The  old  Colonial  bounty  to  fishermen,  in  which  the 

*  The  chief  industries  here  enumerated  were  skins  and  leather,  flax 
and  hemp,  iron  and  steel,  brick  and  pottery,  starch,  fcrass  and  copper, 
tinware,  carriages,  painters'  colors,  refined  sugars,  oils,  soaps,  candles, 
hats,  gunpowder,  chocolate,  snuff  and  chewing  tobacco. 

f  Act  May  2d,  1792,  c.  27. 

j  Act  May  8th,  1792,  c.  32 ;  Hamilton's  Report,  March  5th,  1792. 


188  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

hardy  sons  of  Cape  Cod  were  chiefly  interested,  was  restored 
at  this  session,  after  it  was  shown  that  the  fishing  bounty  was 
a  mere  substitute  for  the  present  drawback  on  the  salt  used  in 
curing  exported  fish,  and  that  the  fishermen  much  preferred 
their  allowance  in  the  more  direct  shape.*  Upon  the  public 
debt  act,  which  provided  for  outstanding  certificates  not  sub 
scribed  to  the  new  loans,  an  attempt  was  made  unsuccessfully 
to  ingraft  a  further  assumption  of  State  debts.f 

The  present  expense  of  revenue  collection  was  very  small, 
being  only  about  3J  per  cent,  of  the  income,  and  the  early 
revenue  produced  not  far  from  nine  times  as  much  as  the  cur 
rent  support  of  the  government  required,  leaving  the  large 
balance  to  be  appropriated  to  the  public  debt  and  extraordi 
nary  expenses. 

Party  spirit  showed  its  teeth  at  this  session  when  a  new  ap 
portionment  bill  was  under  consideration.  The  census  of  1790, 
the  first  in  our  national  decade,  showed  an  aggregate  popula 
tion  in  the  United  States  exceeding  3,920,000,  inclusive  of 
slaves.  Of  free  whites  there  were  some  100,000  more  males 
than  females,  the  preponderance  of  the  latter  sex  being,  as  it 
has  since  remained,  in  the  Eastern  and  more  thickly  settled 
portion  of  the  Union.  The  Northwestern  Territory  contained, 
as  yet,  but  a  few  hundred  inhabitants,  while  in  the  slave  re 
gion  south  of  the  Ohio,  into  which  Virginia  settlers  had 
nocked  in  great  numbers,  were  nearly  37,000.  Slaves  consti 
tuted  from  one-sixth  to  one-fifth  of  the  whole  population  of 
the  country. 

In  accordance  with  this  new  enumeration  it  became  proper 
to  reapportion  the  House,  and  the  opposition  were  highly  de 
sirous  of  so  enlarging  the  membership  of  the  popular  branch 
as  to  make  it  a  surer  counterpoise  of  the  Senate.  The  Ham 
ilton  Federalists,  however,  were  opposed  to  any  such  enlarge 
ment,  foreseeing  that  by  a  change  in  that  direction  they  risked 
their  supremacy  in  Congress;  but  as  a  change  was  inevitable 
they  favored  a  representation  such  as  would  be  least  likely 
to  diminish  their  strength.  Allowing  one  to  every  30.000  in 
habitants — the  largest  representation  of  which  the  Coustitu- 

*  Act  February  16th,  1792,  c.  6. 
f  Act  May  8th,  1792,  c.  38. 


1791-92.       CENSUS   AND   NEW   APPORTIONMENT.  189 

tion  permitted — there  would  be  a  House  of  113  members;  and 
thus  did  the  bill  first  pass  this  branch  of  the  legislature.  But 
ciphering  showed  that  this  would  leave  in  some  of  the  North 
eastern  States  large  fractions  unrepresented,  and  operate  di 
rectly  to  the  advantage  of  the  Southern  opposition  ;  so  the 
Senate  sent  back  the  bill,  changing  the  ratio  to  one  for  every 
33,000.  To  this  the  House  disagreed  and  the  bill  was  lost. 
By  a  second  bill  the  House  provided  that  the  new  apportion 
ment  should  be  one  for  every  30,000  for  the  present,  a  new 
census  and  a  redistribution  to  follow.  But  the  latter  feature 
was  struck  out  by  the  Senate,  and,  in  place  of  the  former,  it 
was  proposed  that  apportionment  should  be  made  by  taking 
the  total  population  of  the  United  States  as  the  basis  of  reck 
oning,  and  dividing  this  aggregate  by  30,000,  which  would 
give  a  House  of  120  members;  these  120  members  to  be  equi 
tably  distributed  among  the  several  States,  allotting  one  mem 
ber  for  every  30,000,  and  distributing  the  residue  among  the 
States  having  the  largest  fraction.  This  bill,  which  passed 
the  House  by  a  very  close  geographical  vote,  was  vetoed  by 
the  President  as  unconstitutional,  (1)  because  the  Constitution 
directs  apportionment  among  the  States  according  to  their 
respective  numbers,  and  no  one  divisor  will  yield  this;  (2) 
because  it  declares  that  there  shall  be  no  more  than  one  Rep 
resentative  for  every  30,000,  according  to  the  respective  num 
bers  of  the  States,  while  this  would  give  to  eight  States  more 
than  this  ratio.  This,  which  was  the  first  exercise  of  the  veto 
power  in  our  history,  sealed  the  fate  of  the  bill.  A  third  bill 
was  now  reported  which  passed  both  houses  and  became  a 
law ;  namely,  to  allow  one  Representative  for  every  33,000, 
agreeably  to  the  first  proposition  of  the  Senate,  thus  allowing 
to  the  House,  after  March  3d,  1793,  105  members.* 

In  the  different  stages  of  these  bills  there  was  much  acri 
mony  of  discussion.  Each  House  divided  on  the  test  votes 
very  closely,  the  Senate  requiring  more  than  once  the  casting 
vote  of  the  Vice-President.")" 

*  See  Act  April  14th,  1792,  c.  23  ;  Annals  of  Congress. 

f  In  later  times  the  principle  of  allowing  representatives  for  the 
larger  fractions  has  been  allowed,  but  not  apparently  to  the  reversal  of 
the  precise  points  made  by  the  President  in  his  veto. 


190  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

Virginia  led  the  opposition  in  some  lesser  sallies  upon  the 
Federalists,  whose  endeavors  to  keep  up  a  high-toned  govern 
ment  were  obstructive  of  the  popular  wishes.  In  the  Senate 
a  strong  but  unsuccessful  effort  was  made  by  Monroe,  seconded 
by  Lee,  to  abolish  secret  sessions,  the  vote  standing  8  to  17. 
A  Federal  proposition  in  the  House  to  put  the  President's 
head  upon  the  new  United  States  coins  was  assailed  with  more 
effect  as  an  uurepublicau  imitation  of  Csesar's  image  and  su 
perscription,  and  the  device  of  liberty  was  finally  substituted 
instead.  Though  in  this  instance  and  another,  where  plans 
were  being  pressed  for  erecting  an  equestrian  statue  to  Wash 
ington,  it  seemed  as  if  the  sentiment  of  the  President's  native 
State  had  set  most  strongly  against  him,  the  real  animus  of 
the  opposition  was  directed  against  the  Hamilton  clique,  from 
whose  influence  they  endeavored  to  draw  Washington  ;  for  to 
wards  him  personally  only  the  most  respectful  language  was 
used. 

An  important  act  of  this  session  related  to  the  postal  ad 
ministration  of  the  United  States.  Post-offices  and  post-roads 
were  established  in  convenient  parts  of  the  country,  together 
with  a  general  post-office  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  a  per 
manent  Postmaster-General.  The  Postmaster-General,  though 
not  yet  ranking  with  heads  of  executive  departments,  was 
intrusted  with  important  functions ;  he  was  to  make  all  con 
tracts  for  the  transportation  of  the  mails,  either  by  stage  car 
riages  or  horses,  as  he  might  deem  expedient;  also  in  packets 
by  sea.  But  Congress  determined  where  post-offices  and  post- 
roads  should  be  located,  instead  of  leaving  this  as  hitherto  to 
the  Executive.  For  robbery  of  the  mail  the  death  penalty  was 
denounced.  Postage  was  graduated  by  both  weight  and  dis 
tance  ;  the  rule  hitherto  in  force  and  prevalent  much  longer  in 
our  system.  Department  correspondence  went  free  for  the  most 
part.  But  as  to  granting  the  franking  privilege  to  legislators, 
a  feature  then  novel,  permission  was  not  accorded  until  after  a 
heated  debate,  and  then  only  as  to  matter  of  a  limited  weight, 
and  during  the  time  members  were  in  actual  attendance  in 
Congress.  Provision  was  made  for  the  conveyance  of  sea  let 
ters  and  newspapers.* 

*  Act  February  20th,  1792,  c.  7  ;  Annals  of  Congress. 


1791-92.  NEW   APPOINTMENTS.  191 

Long  before  the  passage  of  this  act  Timothy  Pickering  had 
been  appointed  Postmaster-General  in  place  of  Samuel  Os- 
goocl,  whose  retirement  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1791. 
Pickering,  a  Massachusetts  man,  had  a  good  record  as  Ad 
jutant-General  an'd  Quartermaster-General  of  the  American 
army  during  the  war.  He  afterwards  speculated  in  land, 
and  settled  on  the  Pennsylvania  tract  claimed  by  the  Connec 
ticut  company,  where,  as  clerk  of  Luzerne  County,  he  bore  a 
prominent  part  in  Pennsylvania's  behalf  in  those  disturbances 
which  have  already  been  alluded  to.  Being  an  aspiring  man, 
of  small  resources,  and  burdened  with  the  care  of  a  large  family, 
Pickering,  with  the  aid  of  his  Massachusetts  friends,  had  sought 
to  emerge  from  these  wilds,  of  which  he  was  heartily  sicken 
ing,  and  enter  the  Federal  service  under  his  former  chief ;  but 
Washington  hesitated  to  call  into  prominent  office  one  who 
was  not  a  representative  man  of  the  State  he  resided  in. 
Charged  specially  with  some  Indian  negotiations,  however, 
Pickering  acquitted  himself  so  well  that  the  present  appoint 
ment  naturally  followed. 

Oliver  Wolcott,  of  Connecticut,  had  been  promoted  to  the 
comptrollership  of  the  treasury.  Simultaneously,  too,  with 
the  appointment  of  a  minister  to  Great  Britain,  Gouverneur 
Morris  was  made  Minister  to  France,  and  Short  to  Holland. 
At  Spain  Carmichael  was  already  our  charge.  Thomas  John- 
sou,  of  Maryland,  took  his  place  on  the  supreme  bench  in  place 
of  John  Rut-ledge,  resigned. 

About  six  weeks  after  Congress  had  assembled  came  the 
news  of  a  military  disaster  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  which, 
for  a  time,  checked  emigration  into  the  Ohio  region. 

After  the  surprise  which  cost  General  Harmar  so  dearly  in 
his  campaign  against  the  hostile  Indians,  Washington  had  re 
solved  to  send  out  a  new  and  more  formidable  expedition.  For 
this  purpose  Congress  made  liberal  provision,  and  troops  were 
enrolled  and  new  supplies  ordered.  The  President  intrusted  the 
command  of  the  new  enterprise  to  his  old  revolutionary  friend, 
General  St.  Clair,  already  the  governor  of  the  Northwest  Ter 
ritory.  In  the  spring  of  1791,  when  St.  Clair  left  Philadelphia 
to  enrol  his  forces  and  engage  the  co-operation  of  the  Western 


192  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

inhabitants,  Washington,  heedful  of  the  Braddock  disaster, 
as  well  as  the  recent  campaign,  impressed  upon  him  earnestly 
the  dangers  of  an  Indian  ambush.  St.  Clair  was  patriotic,  a 
man  of  courage,  and  a  good  counsellor ;  but  his  direction  of 
military  affairs  had  not  always  been  fortunate,  and  he  was  now 
past  the  prime  of  life,  and  troubled  with  bilious  colic  and  the 
gout, 

While  the  recruitment  progressed,  General  Charles  Scott 
and  General  Wilkinson  made  each  an  occasional  sortie  upon 
the  Indians.  They  burned  some  villages  on  the  Wabash, 
ravaged  the  cornfields,  killed  a  few  savages,  and  took  others 
captive.  But  little  glory  and  less  positive  gain  accrued  from 
these  exploits. 

At  length  the  troops  for  the  main  expedition  assembled 
at  Fort  Washington,  the  place  of  rendezvous.  The  regulars, 
including  an  artillery  corps  and  squadrons  of  cavalry,  num 
bered  on  the  expedition  about  2000,  and  there  were  1000 
militia.  With  all  his  effort  St.  Clair  had  procured  enlist 
ments  very  slowly  ;  many  of  the  regulars  were  offscourings  of 
the  cities ;  the  militiamen  had  been  unused  to  soldierly  habits. 
Major  Hamtrauck,  a  good  disciplinarian,  made  the  most  of 
the  brief  camp  opportunities  to  drill  the  raw  recruits.  St. 
Clair  took  the  field  as  commauder-iu-chief,  with  General 
Richard  Butler,  of  Pennsylvania,  as  his  next  in  command. 

A  prime  object  of  the  campaign  was  to  construct  a  line  of 
forts,  so  as  to  establish  a  ready  communication  between  Fort 
Washington  and  the  head-waters  of  the  Wabash.  Roads  were 
to  be  opened,  bridges  constructed,  artillery  wagons  and  mili 
tary  stores  to  be  transported.  Hence  the  progress  was  neces 
sarily  slow.  The  troops  commenced  their  northward  march 
about  the  6th  of  September.  They  halted  on  the  bank  of  the 
Miami  River,  and  built  Fort  Hamilton  at  the  present  site  of 
the  town  of  Hamilton ;  thence  continuing  in  the  same  direction 
to  a  point  just  south  of  Greenville,  near  the  present  western 
boundary  of  Ohio,  they  constructed  Fort  Jefferson.  From 
the  latter  point,  whence  they  moved  October  24th,  the  march 
was  toilsome  ;  Indian  scouting  parties  hung  upon  their  flanks, 
and  the  utmost  wariness  was  needful. 

Whether  or  not  St.  Glair's  presence  failed  to  inspire  confi- 


1791-92.  ST.  GLAIR'S  DISASTER.  193 

clence  in  his  capacity,  it  had  been  painfully  evident  from 
the  start  that  he  could  neither  muster  such  a  force  as  the 
emergency  required,  nor  handle  well  what  he  had  procured. 
Not  only  had  the  troops  been  hastily  disciplined,  but  they 
were  scantily  supplied  with  food  and  clothing.  They  strag 
gled  on  the  march.  Some  would  turn  off  to  shoot  game  in 
disobedience  of  orders ;  others  deserted.  Their  gouty  com 
mander  could  not  walk,  and  had  to  be  helped  off  and  on  his 
horse.  By  October  27th  part  of  the  militia  claimed  that  their 
term  of  service  had  expired  and  that  they  were  entitled  to 
their  discharge ;  they  could  only  be  kept  by  pushing  on. 
About  the  30th,  sixty  of  the  militia  deserted  in  a  body.  It 
was  feared  that  they  would  intercept  and  plunder  a  provision 
train  in  the  rear,  and  after  them  St.  Clair  sent  the  first  regi 
ment  of  regulars,  being  thus  obliged  to  detach  three  hundred 
of  his  best  soldiers  under  experienced  officers.  Other  troops 
had  been  left  for  garrison  duty  on  the  way. 

Reduced  in  this  manner  to  some  1400  effective  rank  and  file, 
the  invading  army  reached  a  point  about  ninety-five  miles 
distant  from  Fort  Washington  on  the  3d  of  November.  They 
had  tramped  through  forests  whose  foliage  was  dyed  with  the 
rich  tints  of  autumn,  falling  leaves  crackling  in  their  path. 
The  days  were  bright  which  had  marked  their  progress  to  the 
rising  ground  where  they  were  now  to  encamp  for  the  night, 
by  the  side  of  an  unknown  stream,  which  was  thought  to  be  a 
tributary  of  the  Miami  of  the  Lakes,  but  in  reality  flowed  into 
the  Upper  Wabash.  There  was  light  snow  on  the  ground,  re 
sembling  hoar-frost. 

Appearances  indicated  that  Indians  had  lately  encamped 
there,  and  a  few  red  scouts  had  been  seen.  There  was  nothing, 
however,  to  apprise  St.  Clair  that  the  Miami  chief,  Little 
Turtle,  with  Blue  Jacket,  of  the  Shawnoese  tribe,  and  a  mur 
derous  force  of  some  2000  warriors  in  their  war-paint,  were  in 
stealthy  concealment  near  by  ;  though  information  that  In 
dians  were  in  the  neighborhood  reached  General  Butler,  as  St. 
Clair  afterwards  charged,  which  Butler  did  not  send  to  head 
quarters  ;  while  orders  issued  by  St.  Clair  at  night  to  Colonel 
Oldham  of  the  militia  were  not  executed. 

Suspecting  no  danger  the  soldiers  early  sought  rest,  wearied 
VOL.  i. — 17 


194  HISTORY   OP   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

out  by  the  day's  march.  The  army  lay  in  two  lines  on  the 
hither  bank, — first  General  Butler  with  the  right  wing,  then  at 
a  space  of  seventy  yards  the  left  wing, — each  with  four  pieces 
of  cannon  in  the  centre,  while  troops  of  horse  guarded  the 
flanks.  Across  the  stream,  which  wound  a  tortuous  course, 
and  was  fordable  in  places,  were  the  ill-disciplined  militia 
under  Colonel  Oldham,  their  place  of  encampment  being  an 
elevated  plain  covered  with  forest-trees,  beyond  a  rich  bottom 
land,  three  hundred  yards  wide. 

The  morning  of  November  4th  arose  bright  and  clear. '  A 
half  hour  before  sunrise  the  troops,  dismissed  from  roll-call, 
were  preparing  their  breakfast,  when  the  yell  of  the  Indians 
was  heard  at  the  militia  encampment  across  the  stream,  fol 
lowed  by  the  crack  of  their  rifles.  The  militiamen,  many  of 
whom  had  never  been  under  fire  in  their  lives,  fled  after  a 
feeble  and  scattered  fire,  and  dashing  madly  over  the  bottom 
land,  and  through  the  water,  broke  into  the  camp  of  the  regu 
lars,  throwing  into  disorder  the  first  line,  which  had  formed 
quickly  on  hearing  the  alarm.  The  Indians  closely  pursued, 
and  only  a  moment  daunted  by  the  bristling  array  of  soldiers, 
hurried  behind  the  logs  and  bushes,  and  there  delivered  their 
fire  with  such  effect  that  the  second  line  had  to  be  brought 
speedily  into  action.  The  artillery  at  the  centre  fought 
bravely,  but  upon  them  the  red  assailants  aimed  their  rifles, 
and  picked  them  off,  officers  and  men,  with  deadly  certainty, 
as  they  stood  by  the  guns  unable  to  make  their  fire  effective ; 
for  the  Indians  only  showed  themselves  as  they  sprang  from 
one  covert  to  another,  or  dashed  to  the  cannon's  mouth,  toma 
hawk  in  hand,  while  the  loading  was  going  on.  St.  Clair  be 
haved  gallantly  despite  his  disability,  and,  assisted  upon  one 
horse  after  another,  or  borne  about  on  a  litter,  he  gave  his  orders 
with  coolness  and  decision.  He  wore  a  coarse  coat,  but  no  uni 
form.  Eight  balls  passed  through  his  clothes  as  he  was  conveyed 
up  and  down  the  lines,  his  white  hair  streaming.  General  But 
ler,  who  also  behaved  with  gallantry,  was  tomahawked  and 
scalped  while  having  a  wound  dressed.  After  a  fight  of  nearly 
three  hours  St.  Clair  ordered  a  retreat,  and,  a  bayonet  charge 
being  made  by  Colonel  Darke  as  a  feint,  the  little  remnant  of  a 
force  now  half  destroyed  gained  the  road  or  trail,  and  made 


1791-92.  ST.  GLAIR'S  DISASTER.  195 

rapid  flight  to  Fort  Jefferson,  which  they  reached  at  nightfall, 
there  overtaking  the  detachment.  Leaving  enough  men  here 
for  a  garrison,  and  finding  his  supply  of  provisions  short,  St. 
Clair  continued  the  retreat  to  Fort  Washington,  where  his 
army  arrived,  exhausted  and  broken-spirited,  at  noon  of  the 
8th,  having  reversed  in  four  days  a  journey  which  had  occu 
pied  nearly  two  months. 

Little  Turtle  and  his  victorious  braves  did  not  pursue ;  but 
the  butchery  of  the  poor  fellows  who  were  left  behind,  worn 
or  wounded,  was  terrible.  The  Indians,  inflamed  against 
the  Americans  to  the  utmost  by  tales  the  British  emissaries 
had  taught  them  to  believe,  showed  no  mercy  to  officer  or 
private.  They  plundered  and  scalped  their  victims,  crammed 
clay  and  sand  into  the  eyes  and  down  the  throats  of  the  dead 
and  dying,  and  disfigured  their  corpses.  Some  thirty-six 
officers  and  nearly  six  hundred  privates  were  killed  and  miss 
ing  ;  and  of  the  wounded  there  were  not  far  from  thirty  officers 
and  two  hundred  and  fourteen  men.  The  Indians  lost  prob 
ably  less  than  one-fifth  of  this  number.  Over  832,000  of 
government  property  was  lost.  The  flight  of  St.  Glair's  army 
was  disorderly.  Men  threw  away  their  muskets  and  accoutre 
ments  and  fairly  took  to  their  heels.  The  wounded  kept  up 
as  they  could.  St.  Clair  saved  himself  by  riding  a  pack- 
horse  which  could  hardly  be  spurred  into  a  trot.* 

When  Washington  received  the  first  tidings  of  St.  Clair's 
defeat  he  maintained  his  self-command  only  long  enough  to 
gain  a  private  room,  where,  in  presence  of  Lear,  his  private 
secretary,  he  gave  way  to  a  momentary  tempest  of  passion  ;f 

*  See  Lossing's  Field  Book  of  1812,  with  valuable  citations  from 
Winthrop  Sargent's  MS.  Journal  and  Dillon's  History  of  Indiana;  also 
5  Irving's  Washington;  4  Hildrcth. 

f  Lear  has  left  a  graphic  description  of  the  scene.  "  Here,"  said 
Washington,  "yes  HERE,  on  this  very  spot,  I  took  leave  of  him.  I 
wished  him  success  and  honor.  You  have  your  instructions,  I  said, 
from  the  Secretary  of  War.  I  had  a  strict  eye  to  them,  and  will  add 
but  one  word — Beware  of  a  surprise  !  I  repeat  it — BEWARE  OF  A  SUR 
PRISE  !  You  know  how  the  Indians  fight  us.  He  went  off  with  that, 
as  my  last  solemn  warning,  thrown  into  his  ears.  And  yet!  to  sufler 
that  army  to  be  cut  to  pieces,  hacked,  butchered,  tomahawked  bv  a  sur 
prise — the  very  thing  I  guarded  him  against !  O  God  !  O  God  !  lie  is 


196  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

but,  subsiding  soon  into  a  calmer  mood,  determined  that  St. 
Clair  should  have  justice.  The  poor  veteran,  whose  chief  mis 
fortune  had  consisted  in  taking  far  too  many  odds  in  his  zeal 
to  perform  a  public  service,  hobbled  up  to  his  chief  when 
he  reached  Philadelphia  and  the  Presidential  mansion,  as 
though  to  a  safe  shelter  from  the  popular  rage,  and,  seizing 
Washington's  offered  hand  in  both  of  his,  sobbed  aloud.*  An 
investigation  was  ordered  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
which  resulted  in  his  acquittal  of  blame;  the  more  readily, 
perhaps,  since  this  enabled  members  to  put  part  of  the  fault 
upon  Knox  and  Hamilton,  because  of  the  ill-supply  of  the 
expedition.  But  so  hot  was  the  indignation  of  the  country 
against  St.  Clair  that  it  was  impossible  to  keep  him  in  com 
mission  long  enough  for  the  investigation  to  conclude.  What 
ever  happier  fate  may  be  in  store  for  the  civilian,  all  is  over 
with  the  soldier  who  wholly  misses  his  ripe  opportunity.  The 
President  required  St.  Clair  to  resign  the  major-generalship, 
and  promptly  appointed  General  Anthony  Wayne  in  his  place. 
St.  Clair,  however,  retained  the  office  of  governor  until  re 
moved  in  1802.f 

It  is  not  easy  for  the  present  age  to  conceive  of  the  horror 
and  dismay  which  the  news  of  this  Indian  massacre  carried  to 
every  household — to  Western  emigrants  alike,  and  their  par 
ents,  brothers,  and  sisters  at  the  East.  Broadsides  circulated 
the  narrative  in  a  dismal  doggerel,  headed  by  a  picture  of 
forty  coffins.  Alarmed  for  their  exposed  frontiers  Pennsylvania 
and  Virginia  at  once  proceeded  to  raise  local  troops.  Con 
gress  took  measures  in  addition  for  filling  up  the  existing  regi- 

worse  than  a  murderer  !  How  can  he  answer  it  .to  his  country  ?  The 
blood  of  the  slain  is  upon  him — the  curse  of  widows  and  orphans — the 
curse  of  Heaven !" 

Mr.  Lear  says:  "It  was  awful.  More  than  once  he  threw  his 
hands  up  as  he  hurled  imprecations  upon  St.  Clair."  But  Washington 
soon  sat  clown  on  the  sofa  once  more,  seeming  conscious  of  his  passion 
and  uncomfortable.  He  was  silent,  his  wrath  presently  subsided,  and 
at  length  he  spoke  in  an  altered  voice  and  calmly.  See  Rush's  Wash 
ington  in  Domestic  Life. 

*  See  Lossing's  War  of  1812,  p.  50 ;  Custis's  Recollections. 

f  St.  Clair' s  last  years  were  passed  in  poverty.  But  in  1856  an  appro 
priation  was  procured  for  his  heirs. 


1791-92.  ST.  GLAIR'S  DISASTER.  197 

meuts,  authorizing  three  new  ones  to  be  raised  for  the  emer 
gency,  and  further  permitting  the  President  to  appoint  four 
brigadiers.*  Another  act,  passed  late  in  the  session  and  lim 
ited  in  point  of  time,  empowered  the  President  to  call  forth 
the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  suppress 
insurrections,  and  repel  invasion  from  foreign  nations  or  In- 
dians.f  In  the  militia  were  enrolled  all  able-bodied  white 
male  citizens  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five,  the 
details  of  the  plan  being  left,  however,  mainly  to  the  discre 
tion  of  the  State  authorities. J 

The  new  brigadiers,  finally  commissioned  after  others  had 
declined,  were  Williams,  Putnam,  Brooks,  and  Wilkinson,  the 
latter  receiving  a  merited  promotion,  notwithstanding  an  im 
putation  that  he  had  formerly  been  a  willing  instrument  for 
Spanish  intrigues.  Wayne's  selection  for  the  chief  command, 
just  after  he  had  been  unseated  in  Congress,  gave  offence,  but 
the  event  proved  Washington's  good  judgment. 

Though  all  agreed  that  the  war  must  now  be  vigorously 
prosecuted,  Washington  was  blamed  by  some,  and  unjustly, 
as  though  his  Indian  policy  had  failed  in  moderation  and  hu 
manity.  To  counteract  such  an  impression  a  report  was  is 
sued  through  the  Secretary  of  War  showing  the  origin  of  the 
present  hostilities.  The  difficulties  of  the  present  administra 
tion  were  great,  for,  besides  the  British  and  Spanish,  States 
and  individual  settlers  constantly  thwarted  the  efforts  of  the 
Union  to  maintain  friendly  relations  with  the  Indian  tribes. 
But,  in  spite  of  all  disadvantages,  the  Six  Nations  of  Western 
New  York  were  kept  from  joining  the  Northwestern  warriors, 
and  the  famous  chief  Cornplantcr  became  our  cherished  friend. 
Southern  tribes  were,  however,  quite  uneasy.  The  Cherokees, 
in  particular,  had  been  incensed  by  white  encroachments  upon 
their  lands  ;  but  a  temporary  treaty,  giving  them  a  money 
recompense,  pacified  them  in  a  measure.  After  St.  Glair's 
defeat  disturbances  were  fomented  by  the  Spanish  authorities, 
which  might  have  become  quite  serious  had  not  Little  Turtle 
and  the  Wabash  tribes  failed  to  follow  up  their  victory. 


*  Acts  March  5th,  1792,  c.  9;  March  28th,  c.  14. 

f  Act  May  2d,  1792,  c.  28.  J  Act  May  8th,  1792,  c.  23. 


198  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

Western  emigration  and  the  rapid  peopling  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley  foretokened,  nevertheless,  the  banishment  of  the 
Indian  race  to  the  regions  of  the  setting  sun,  and,  under  the 
present  condition  of  non-amalgamation,  its  gradual  extinction. 
And  although  for  a  brief  space  the  human  tide  might  be 
checked  by  these  Indian  reverses,  its  irresistible  course  pressed 
towards  continental  empire.  Whether  those  felt  this  who  had 
marked  its  progress  from  the  British  and  Spanish  watchtowers, 
whence  they  had  set  the  red  men  to  the  vain  task  of  sweeping 
it  back,  certainly  some  of  our  most  sagacious  leaders  in  Con 
gress  were  far  from  appreciating  the  true  situation,  and  this 
almost  immeasurable  wilderness  appeared  to  them  a  wilderness 
for  many  generations  to  come.* 

But  there  were  speculators  who  had  miscalculated  in  the 
contrary  direction;  and  the  whole  public  land  policy  of  the 
United  States  at  this  period  was  founded  upon  an  untenable 
idea,  which  Congress  afterwards  abandoned,  namely,  that  of 
deriving  an  immediate  revenue  from  the  sale  of  large  tracts, 
and  trusting  the  whole  plan  of  colonization  to  mercenary  pur 
chasers  or  proprietaries.  Instead  of  encouraging  the  honest 
pioneer  by  affording  a  cheap  pre-emption  right,  or  giving  him 
outright  the  farm  which  he  had  improved  as  his  homestead, 
Congress  left  him  to  bargain  with  land  companies,  whose  greed 
proved  greater  than  their  gain.  Five  millions  of  acres,  ex 
tending 'along  the  Ohio,  from  the  Muskiugum  to  the  Scioto, 
were  sold  to  the  so-called  "  Ohio  Company,"  and  one  Symrnes, 
of  New  Jersey,  bought  two  millions  of  acres  between  the  Great 
and  Little  Miami  rivers,  which  included  the  present  site  of 
Cincinnati;  and  under  such  auspices  the  colonization  of  Ohio 
commenced. 

The  consequence  was  disappointing  to  all  concerned.  The 
price  of  small  parcels  was  placed  as  high  as  possible,  for  the 
proprietors  were  not  Wint.hrops,  Penns,  or  Calverts,  gener 
ously  ambitious  of  founding  States,. but  over-confident  specu 
lators,  figuring  for  a  rise.  The  ruder  pioneer,  respecting  law 
but  little  and  the  capitalist  less,  settled  wherever  he  found  a 
vacant  spot  that  suited  him,  and,  after  cultivating  the  land 

*  See  Ames,  Goodlme,  and  others  in  the  debate  upon  the  Capital 
question,  1790. 


1791-92.  WESTERN   LAND   SPECULATORS.  199 

and  building  his  hut,  defied  all  writs  of  ejectment.  Before 
1789  troops  had  been  sent,  under  General  Harmar,  to  drive 
these  squatters,  so  termed,  from  the  public  domain.  They 
burnt  the  cabins,  broke  down  the  fences,  and  tore  up  the  po 
tato  patches,  but  three  hours  after  they  left  the  inhabitants 
returned.*  An  effort  was  made  in  the  first  session  of  Congress 
to  induce  government  to  sell  directly  to  the  settlers,  but  the 
influence  of  speculators  and  the  jealousy  of  older  States,  dread 
ing  the  depletion  of  their  own  population,  prevented  action.  In 
the  end  most  of  the  large  laud  speculators  were  ruined  ;  pur 
chasers  from  them  showed  constant  discontent,  and  very  lit 
tle  public  revenue  from  territorial  sales  was  actually  realized. 
The  lesson  that  our  general  gain  must  come  indirectly  and 
from  the  slow  accretions  of  wealth  in  a  domain  thrown  liberally 
open  to  cultivation  and  enlightenment  was  yet  to  be  learned. 

Private  ventures  in  Western  lands,  however,  attracted,  at 
this  period,  less  attention  than  speculative  enterprises  nearer 
home.  The  sudden  prosperity  of  the  country  and  the  quick 
blossom  of  a  public  credit,  and  public  confidence  surpassing 
all  experience,  gave  an  astonishing  buoyancy  to  private  capi 
tal.  More  especially  did  the  recent  subscription  to  the  na 
tional  bank,  and  the  rapid  rise  in  the  value  of  its  shares,  stim 
ulate  the  extravagant  hopes  of  people  at  the  large  centres, 
who  never  before  understood  how  fortunes  could  be  made  in 
a  day  except  by  the  familiar  wheel  of  the  lottery.  Grand 
schemes  of  internal  improvement  were  at  once  projected  in 
the  wealthier  States;  bridges  were  to  be  built  and  canals 
opened.  Tontine  and  insurance  associations  asked  for  acts  of 
incorporation,  but  the  charters  which  most  pressed  upon  the 
local  legislatures  were  for  new  banks.  "  Scripo  phobia,"  as  the 
press  termed  it,  was  America's  madness  in  the  summer  of 
1791 ;  men  gambled  recklessly  in  bank  scrip  and  government 
securities,  and  to  a  bewildered  public,  who,  for  the  first  time, 
saw  such  commodities  regularly  auctioned  off  and  their  market 
rates  quoted,  it  was  found  needful  to  set  forth  a  full  explana 
tion  of  the  strange  phenomenon. 


Sec  Scott's  speech,  Annals  of  Congress,  1789. 


200  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

New  York  city  was  the  hotbed  of  these  feverish  specula 
tions  at  which  sober  people  stood  aghast.  Here  banks  soared 
like  soap-bubbles,  the  most  foolish  of  them  being  styled  the 
"  Million  Bank  of  the  State  of  New  York."  A  ring  of  specu 
lators,  chief  among  whom  was  Hamilton's  late  assistant,  Duer, 
who  had  resigned  in  the  summer  of  1790,  hovered  about  the 
treasury  with  ears  pricked  up  to  catch  its  latest  secrets.  When 
Hamilton  dropped  a  hint  about  taking  up  the  deferred  debt, 
they  started  their  agents  to  buy  up  the  certificates  wherever 
they  could.  Duer,  as  it  appears,  had  an  assignment  of  the 
contract  for  the  St.  Clair  supplies.  But  a  collapse  came  early 
in  1792.  Duer  became  insolvent  and  was  thrown  into  jail  by 
his  creditors  ;  others  of  his  set  fled  to  New  Jersey  ;  there  were 
many  failures  in  the  spring,  and  for  large  amounts.* 

Hamilton  himself,  we  may  feel  assured,  was  not  corruptly 
concerned  in  these  transactions.  But  his  sudden  ascendency 
as  the  Merlin  of  finance  seems  to  have  tempted  him,  at  this 
golden  hour  of  his  career,  to  use  his  wand  of  enchantment  as  a 
sceptre  to  command  others.  Confident  in  himself,  looking  to 
new  political  conquests,  and  underestimating,  as  always,  both 
the  strength  and  the  ability  of  his  political  enemies,  he  sought 
not  the  general  enrichment  alone,  but  in  particular  that  of 
the  moneyed  class  and  New  York  capitalists,  whom  he  hoped  to 
draw  closer  by  the  insidious  use  of  money  favors  after  the  British 
plan  of  attracting  the  powerful.  Douceurs,  subsidies,  and  com 
missions,  too,  were  bestowed  to  keep  the  agents  good-humored 
through  whom  he  was  effecting  his  loans.  He  had,  soon  after 
entering  office,  refused  treasury  information  to  one  who  asked 
it,  reminding  him  that  suspicion  is  eagle-eyed  ;f  and  yet  in 
his  anxiety  to  save  Duer  and  his  other  personal  friends  from 
ruinous  schemes  he  was  afterwards  betrayed  into  indiscreet 
confidences.  Impatient  of  control,  as  he  was,  and  desirous 
to  strike  at  what  he  considered  the  right  moment,  no  matter 
whether  Congress  or  an  executive  stood  in  the  way,  he  sent  out 
secret  orders  for  purchasing  debt  certificates  in  advance  of  au 
thority,  which  ought  first  to  have  been  procured.  The  presi- 

*  See  current  newspapers,  1701-92;  Correspondence  of  Madison, 
Ames,  and  others,  1791. 

f  2  Hamilton's  Works,  December,  1789. 


1791-92.          HAMILTON'S  INDISCRETIONS.  201 

dent  of  the  bank  in  New  York  where  Hamilton  kept  his 
private  account,  which  was  sometimes  overdrawn,  had  frequent 
occasion  to  be  "  the  dispenser  of  Hamilton's  benevolence," 
as  he  called  it,  And  a  manufacturing  company  having  been 
established  by  Hamilton's  influence  for  his  own  friends, 
Hamilton  promised  that  the  bank  should  suffer  no  diminu 
tion  of  "pecuniary  facilities"  from  any  accommodation  it 
might  render  this  concern,  and,  depositing  public  funds  there, 
the  secretary  would  volunteer  a  promise  not  to  draw  them  out 
so  as  to  embarrass  the  institution.* 

While  the  secretary  was  thus  feathering  the  nests  of  his 
favorites,  and  administering  his  department  after  the  style  of 
a  Hobbes  philosopher,  public  suspicion  was  directed  towards 
him,  without,  however,  tangible  proof  of  criminality.  Malice 
or  jealousy  inspired,  doubtless,  much  of  the  abuse  now  directed 
towards  him.  Nor,  assuredly,  did  compeers  hold  that  key 
which  seems  best  to  turn  the  wards  of  his  wayward  inner 
nature — namely,  the  effort  to  reconcile  spotlessuess  of  public 
ends  with  the  employment  of  means  not  spotless.  The  danger 
which  besets  such  a  nature  in  high  station  is  the  gradual  and 
imperceptible  dry-rot  of  virtue,  and  Hamilton  at  precisely 
this  pinnacle  of  his  career,  though  of  a  truly  noble  disposition, 
betrayed  in  his  elation  unmistakable  symptoms  of  that  dis 
order.  By  his  own  confession,  now  made  secretly  to  an  in 
vestigating  committee  and  openly  years  lateiyf  he  carried  on 
an  adulterous  amour,  which  exposed  him  the  more  to  these 
other  suspicions. 

The  cry  was  now  echoed  and  re-echoed  by  the  opposition 
papers  that  national  stock-jobbing,  monarchy-jobbing,  bank-job 
bing,  and  aristocracy-jobbing  went  on  ;  that  poverty  ruled  in 
the  country  and  luxury  in  the  cities,  corruption  and  usurpation 
in  the  public  councils.  There  were  riots  in  New  York  upon 
Duer's  failure,  so  that  the  mayor  had  to  invoke  peaceable  citizens 

*  See  Hamilton's  published  Works,  1791-92.  The  iilial  editor  of 
Hamilton's  voluminous  correspondence,  in  his  zeal  to  establish  the  per 
vading  influence  of  Hamilton  upon  events  of  the  day,  has  lately  printed 
much  testimony  tending  to  convict  him  of  some  damaging  charges  made 
by  political  opponents,  who  were  themselves  unaware  that  such  letters 
existc:!. 

f  See  c.  4,  post. 


202  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

to  aid  the  authorities  ;  stocks  fell  and  for  a  brief  space  there 
was  business  stagnation  and  depression  in  the  city.  The  Vice- 
President  was  abused  for  Davila,  the  Secretary  of  War  for  his 
national  legions  and  the  St.  Clair  expedition  ;  but  the  Secre 
tary  of -the  Treasury,  with  his  reports  "dangerous  to  liberty" 
and  his  "  corrupt  squadron,"  was  the  most  abused  man  in  the 
cabinet  by  the  spring  of  1792. 

Congress  had  not  adjourned  without  abolishing  the  office  of 
assistant  secretary,  whi^h  Duer  had  disgraced,  and  otherwise 
curtailing  the  functions  of  the  treasury,  besides  extending  the 
statute  restraints  upon  the  speculating  tendencies  of  officials.* 
There  had  been  flings,  too,  in  debate,  at  the  national  bank 
as  a  machine  for  promoting  the  objects  of  the  moneyed  interest 
and  corrupting  the  people's  representatives. f 

These  political  opponents  of  the  Hamilton  Federalists  had 
now  begun  to  assume  the  regular  style  of  "  Republicans." 
To  Federalists,  however,  who  prided  themselves  upon  their 
old  party  name,  it  seemed  rather  a  Southern  faction,  "outs," 
who  were  jealous  of  the  "ins,"  the  old  dregs  and  faeces  of 
Anti-Federalism  once  more  in  ferment.  On  their  own  part, 
the  present  fealty  of  Federalist  leaders  was  not  so  much  to  the 
Constitution,  in  which  all  classes  of  citizens  now  fairly  acqui 
esced,  as  to  the  broad  construction  of  constitutional  powers, 
and  the  funding  and  other  great  features  of  the  Hamilton 
system  of  finance.  Hamilton  himself  originated  the  ideas  which 
they  supported.  Voters  will  cling  long  to  party  names  and 
traditions  and  to  party  favorites,  under  any  circumstances ; 
and,  with  Washington  at  the  head,  patriots,  irrespective  of 
party,  were  well  satisfied.  The  common  people  as  yet  had  not 
learned  to  use  their  strength  ;  and  Ames  put  the  patrician 
idea  modestly  enough  when  he  asserted  that  "  the  men  of  sense 
and  property,  even  a  little  above  the  multitude,  wish  to  keep 
the  government  in  force  enough  to  govern.''^ 

As  against  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  the  States  where 
these  opposition  elements  were  becoming  most  active,  and  whose 
legislatures  had  recently  led  off  in  attempting,  among  other 

*  Act  May  8th,  1792,  c.  37. 

f  Annuls  of  Congress  ;  Giles's  speech. 

j  1  Fisher  Ames,  103. 


1791-92.  NEW   DIVERSION   OF   PARTIES.  203 

popular  measures,  to  force  open  the  doors  of  the  United  States 
Senate,  the  Federal  leaders,  strongly  dominant  in  New  Eng 
land,  hoped  to  win  by  keeping  New  York  and  the  Middle 
States  on  their  own  side. 

While  conservatives,  aristocrats,  the  commercial  class,  the 
timorous,  and  the  friends  of  a  powerful  rule  thus  gravitated 
towards  Hamilton  as  their  natural  leader  and  exponent,  the 
liberty-loving,  those  jealous  of  class  supremacy  and  court  man 
ners,  they  who  detested  money-changers  and  the  new  methods 
of  growing  rich,  together  with  the  floating  remnants  of  the  Anti- 
Federal  and  State  rights  party,  were  irresistibly  attracted 
towards  Jefferson,  whose  superior  talents  and  social  eminence 
made  his  devotion  to  their  cause  appear  all  the  more  captivat 
ing.  Probably  no  two  men  holding  subordinate  station  under 
an  American  President  can  ever  again  so  strongly  influence 
powerful  parties  by  their  personal  example  as  did  Hamilton 
and  Jefferson  in  this  and  the  succeeding  years.  Nor  was  their 
present  influence  owing  so  much  to  their  rival  ambitious  as  to 
the  genuine  devotedness  of  each  to  the  politics  and  political 
methods  he  professed. 

Jefferson  was  unsparing  and  vehement  in  denouncing  Ham 
ilton's  political  designs,  which,  for  one  excluded  from  bosom 
confidence,  he  divined  by  no  means  incorrectly.  His  charges 
gained  force  by  constant  reiteration,  and  many  of  the  sting 
ing  epithets  which  circulated  in  the  press  were  of  his  own 
making.  He  was  a  master  and  a  skilful  and  cunning  or 
ganizer  in  this  sort  of  skirmishing,  and  his  opposition  was  all- 
pervading.  Jefferson  did  no  injustice  to  Hamilton's  colossal 
abilities,  while  Hamilton  made  the  error  of  underrating  Jeffer 
son,  as  he  did  almost  every  one  with  whom  he  was  brought  in 
contact, Washington  not  excepted.  Jefferson's  hatred  of  British 
methods,  and  the  apparent  subserviency  of  the  treasury  to  the 
grasping  selfishness  of  a  money-making  class,  was  intense.  In 
Hamilton's  present  financial  policy  he  thought  he  perceived 
dangerous  tendencies,  not  undesigned.  But  he  was  not  him 
self  quite  at  home  in  finance,  and,  as  regarded  Great  Britain, 
he  believed  the  British  debt,  rolling  constantly  onward,  would 
some  day  bring  the  British  nation  to  bankruptcy;  and  a  simi 
lar  national  debt  for  the  United  States,  never  to  be  paid,  but 


204  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IT. 

always  to  remain  as  an  artful  contrivance  for  keeping  moneyed 
men  and  the  administration  in  close  and  profitable  alliance, 
while  the  nation  groaned  under  taxation,  was,  and  most  likely 
with  injustice,  his  present  interpretation  of  the  treasury  projects. 
As  for  preserving  the  public  faith  by  keeping  up  the  public 
credit,  Hamilton  and  Jefferson  were  not  at  actual  variance, 
though  by  his  present  attacks  upon  the  national  bank  and  a 
national  excise  the  latter  appeared  at  disadvantage  in  this  re 
spect.  His  State,  too,  sedulous  in  treasuring  faith  with  its  own 
creditors,  had  yet  confiscated  British  demands  without  remorse. 
For  the  stock  gambling  and  speculations  of  the  day  Jefferson 
had  the  profound  contempt  of  an  agriculturist,  accustomed  to 
plain  bargain  and  sale.  He  detested  paper  money  and  the  busi 
ness  which  thrived  by  scrip  fluctuations  and  note-shaving.  His 
theoretical  ideas  on  government  operations  were  simple,  but 
hard  at  present  to  carry  out :  namely,  to  keep  no  irredeemable 
paper  afloat,  to  limit  'funding  to  a  redemption  of  the  debt 
within  the  lives  of  a  majority  of  the  generation  contracting  it, 
and  to  authorize  no  loan  without  at  the  same  time  providing 
funds  for  its  redemption.  "  There  can  never  be  a  fear,"  he 
writes,  "  but  that  the  paper  which  represents  the  public  debt 
will  be  ever  sacredly  good.  The  public  faith  is  bound  for  this, 
and  no  change  of  system  will  ever  be  permitted  to  touch  this."* 
Hamilton  perceived  the  course  Jefferson  and  Madison  and 
their  State  were  taking,  and  was  very  angry.  Conscious  that 
his  protection  and  other  schemes  were  balked,  he  wrote  soon 
after  Congress  adjourned  to  a  Virginia  friend,  charging  the 
Jefferson  faction  with  a  womanish  attachment  to  France  and 
a  womanish  resentment  against  Great  Britain,  while  he  him 
self  wished  the  neutral  and  pacific  policy  pursued.  Jefferson, 
"a  man  of  profound  ambition  and  violent  passions,"  he  adds, 
"is  seeking  the  Presidency."  As  to  the  current  talk  of  a  mo 
narchical  party,  which  plots  destruction,  he  declares  there  is  no 
such  party,  and  though  some  have  ideas  less  republican  than 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  they  would  regard  any  attempt  to  sub 
vert  the  republican  system  as  criminal  and  visionary.  "  I  my 
self,"  he  avers,  "  am  affectionately  attached  to  the  republican 

*  Jefferson's  Writings,  March  18th,  1792. 


1791-92.  CABINET   DISSENSIONS.  205 

theory,  and  desire  to  demonstrate  its  practical  success.  But 
as  to  State  governments,  if  they  can  be  circumscribed,  con 
sistently  with  preserving  the  nation,  it  is  well;  and  if  all 
States  were  of  the  size  of  Connecticut,  Maryland,  or  New 
Jersey,  all  would  be  right.  But  as  it  is,  I  seriously  apprehend 
that  the  United  States  will  not  be  able  to  maintain  itself 
against  their  influence.  Hence  I  am  disposed  for  a  liberal 
construction  of  the  powers  of  the  national  government."* 

Washington  saw,  with  manifest  concern,  the  growing  enmity 
of  his  two  chief  advisers,  who,  ever  since  they  had  put  him  to 
a  choice  in  advising  upon  the  national  bank  measure,  had 
been  breaking  apart.  In  his  own  lofty  soul  party  spirit  could 
find  no  lodgment,  but  he  meant  to  treat  each  public  question 
impartially  as  it  arose,  according  to  his  sense  of  right,  leaving 
those  who  would  to  frame  original  measures  for  Congress  to 
act  upon.  He  could  not  have  been  unaware  of  the  diverse 
views  held  by  those  he  invited  into  the  public  councils,  nor 
did  he  think  it  a  disadvantage  to  take  the  advice  of  men  who 
viewed  public  measures  from  opposite  standpoints.  Yet  he 
appears  not  to  have  well  considered  how  hardly  two  such  spir 
ited  opponents  as  Hamilton  and  Jefferson  would  pull  when 
harnessed  together,  or  else  to  have  trusted  too  implicitly  to 
his  own  arbitrating  faculty  as  the  means  for  keeping  their 
ambitions  well  in  hand,  and  directing  the  mettlesome  span  in 
a  straight  course.  He  was  now  wearied  of  contentions  over 
issues  less  portentous  than  that  of  preserving  liberty  and 
union.  All  the  public  honors  worth  living  for  he  had  enjoyed. 
He  was  growing  deaf;  he  feared  that  other  faculties  were 
failing  him  ;  old  age  was  creeping  on  ;  his  spirit  yearned  for 
peace  and  retirement.  Of  his  intention  to  close  his  public 
career  at  the  end  of  the  present  term  he  had  spoken  nearly  a 
year  before  to  members  of  his  cabinet,  and  he  now  renewed 
the  subject  with  Madison,  and  perhaps  others,  with  the  design 
of  preparing  a  farewell  address.  The  attacks  which  were 
made  upon  his  subordinates  in  administration  he  took  to  him 
self;  he  smarted  under  the  growing  censoriousness  of  the  press. 
"I  would  rather,"  he  exclaimed,  "go  to  my  farm,  take  my 


*  Hamilton's  Works,  Letter  to  Carrington,  May  2Gth,  1792. 


206  HISTOKY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

spade  iii  my  baud,  and  work  for  my  bread  than  remain  where 
I  am."* 

Both  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  by  tbis  time  thoroughly  alarmed 
at  the  prospect  of  having  a  national  contest  precipitated  thus 
early,  urged  Washington  to  stand  for  a  second  term.  "The 
confidence  of  the  whole  Union,"  writes  Jefferson  to  Mount 
Vernou,  "  is  centred  in  you.  Your  being  at  the  helm  will 
be  more  than  an  answer  to  every  argument  which  can  be  used 
to  alarm  and  lead  the  people  in  any  quarter  into  violence  and 
secession.  North  and  South  will  hang  together  if  they  have 
you  to  hang  ou."f  Randolph  and  Madison  enforced  the  same 
general  idea,  which  Hamilton  also  expressed,  that  the  affairs 
of  the  new  government  were  not  yet  sufficiently  established  to 
warrant  Washington's  retirement.  Each  faction  appears  to 
have  been  afraid  of  what  the  other  might  do  should  such  a 
contingency  now  occur. 

Jefferson  had  not  intended  taking  any  unfair  advantage  of 
his  official  position  while  warring  upon  Hamilton.  By  the 
close  of  February,  1792,  he  expressed  to  Washington  his  own 
intention  of  vacating  office  when  the  present  Federal  cycle 
was  completed,  at  the  same  time  frankly  setting  forth  the 
grounds  of  his  distrust  of  the  treasury  set.J  The  President, 
in  an  affectionate  response,  sought  to  dissuade  him  from  this 
purpose,  throwing  out  the  idea  that  the  retirement  of  a  Chief 
Magistrate  ought  not  to  disturb  the  statils  of  department 
heads.  A  confidential  conversation  took  place  between  them 
in  July,  when  Washington  referred  to  the  causes  of  Jefferson's 
present  dissatisfaction.  He  thought  there  were  suspicions 
against  a  particular  party  or  faction  which  had  been  carried 
altogether  too  far;  there  might  be  desires  but  he  did  not  be 
lieve  there  were  designs  to  change  the  form  of  the  government 
into  a  monarchy  ;  there  might  be  a  few  who  wished  it  in  the 
higher  walks  of  life,  particularly  in  the  great  cities,  but  the 
main  body  of  the  people  in  the  Eastern  States  were  as  steadily 

*  Sec  1  Madison's  Writings,  5G3-5G8. 

f  Jefferson's  Works,  May  23d,  1792.  And  see  10  Washington's 
Writings,  May-August,  1792. 

J  Jefferson's  Anas,  July  10th,  1792.  The  same  intention  was  ex 
pressed  by  letter  in  March. 


1792.  JEFFERSON   CRITICISES   HAMILTON.  207 

for  republicanism  as  in  the  Southern.  From  this  Washington 
proceeded  to  condemn  certain  late  publications,  particularly 
those  in  Freneau's  paper,  which  tended  to  excite  opposition 
against  the  excise  and  to  produce  dissolution  and  anarchy. 
"  I  take  to  myself,"  he  says,  "  these  attacks  on  my  adminis 
tration  ;  in  condemning  the  administration  they  condemn  me ; 
the  attack  is  directly  on  me,  for  I  must  be  a  fool  indeed  to 
swallow  the  little  sugar  plums  here  and  there  thrown  out  to 
me."  Proceeding  thus,  Washington  observed  that  he  had  not 
approved  all  acts  in  all  parts,  but  he  had  never  signed  a  bill 
without,  on  the  whole,  thinking  it  eligible ;  that,  as  to  the 
bank,  about  which  there  had  been  so  much  complaint,  until 
there  is  some  infallible  criterion  of  reason  a  difference  of  opin 
ion  must  be  tolerated.  To  these  and  similar  remarks  Jefferson 
responded,  reiterating  the  views  he  had  expressed  in  his  own 
letter,  and  upon  a  random  discussion  of  these  points  the  in 
terview  ended.* 

Washington  was  not  unimpressed  by  what  Jefferson  had 
said,  for  shortly  after  he  put  pointedly  to  Hamilton  himself, 
by  letter,  the  charges  his  cabinet  colleague  had  preferred,  but 
in  a  skilful  way,  as  though  they  came  .from  various  Virginia 
sources.  Yet,  as  he  proceeded  to  copy  the  complaints  almost 
verbatim  from  Jefferson's  letter,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Hamil 
ton  recognized  their  source. f  Hamilton's  reply  was  spirited, 
and  met  the  charges  point  by  point.  He  defended  his  finan 
cial  policy  in  detail,  the  duties  on  imports  and  excise,  the 
bank  paper,  and  as  to  corruption  made  indignant  denial. 
The  members  of  Congress  assailed,  he  says,  are  men  of  virtue 
and  independence  ;  several,  to  be  sure,  are  owners  of  public 
debt  in  various  ways,  some  as  creditors,  others  as  purchasers, 
hut  very  few,  as  he  thinks,  were  ever  considerable  dealers. 
Several  of  them  became  owners  in  the  bank,  some  to  a  large 
amount ;  but  all  operations  of  this  kind  were  necessarily  subse 
quent  to  the  determination  of  the  measure.  Thus  parrying 
Jefferson's  insinuations  of  a  purpose  to  gain  an  insidious  cor- 
luptiiig  influence  over  members  of  the  legislative  branch, 


*  See  Jefferson's  Anas,  which  is  here  worthy  of  credence, 
f  AV  ash  i  niton's  Writings,  July  29th,  1792. 


208  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  II. 

Hamilton  next  made  emphatic  denial  of  the  charge  that  he 
had  an  ultimate  object  of  making  way  for  a  change  to  mon 
archy.  To  conceive  such  plots  would  take  too  long,  he  said, 
and  in  his  mind  the  only  possible  way  to  monarchy  is  to 
flatter  popular  prejudices,  and  so  throw  affairs  into  confusion, 
that  finally  the  people,  tired  of  anarchy,  might  take  refuge  in 
a  monarchy.  Hamilton  intimated  a  wish  to  make  some  con 
stitutional  change  in  the  judiciary,  so  as  to  bring  a  more  inti 
mate  connection  between  State  and  national  governments 
and  he  made  the  counter-charge  of  a  plot  on  the  other  side  to 
overturn  the  general  government  and  erect  the  separate  power 
of  States  upon  its  ruins.* 

But  before  Washington  wrote,  Hamilton  had  chosen  his 
own  means  of  making  an  open  breach  with  his  rival,  and  forc 
ing  him  from  the  cabinet,  besides  making  his  party  contempti 
ble  in  the  fall  elections.  In  Fenno's  Gazette  one  "  T.  L."  called 
attention,  July  25th,  to  the  fact  that  Freneau  received  a  salary 
from  the  government,  and  made  inquiry  whether  this  salary 
was  paid  him  for  translations  or  for  publications  whose  design 
was  to  vilify  the  administration  and  disturb  the  public  peace. 
A  communication  followed  about  a  week  later  signed  "An 
American,"  which  in  a  scathing  style  made  the  charge  that 
Freneau's  Gazette  had  been  instituted  by  the  Secretary  of  State, 
and  that  its  editor  was  regularly  pensioned  by  public  money 
at  the  disposal  of  that  officer.  This  charge'was  met  by  a  pub 
lished  denial  from  Freneau  himself,  accompanied  by  his  affi 
davit  that  his  coming  to  Philadelphia  was  his  own  voluntary 
act ;  that  as  an  editor  of  a  newspaper  he  had  never  been  urged, 
advised,  or  influenced  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  had  never  di 
rectly  or  indirectly  written,  dictated,  or  composed  for  it ;  that 
a  paltry  clerkship  of  $250  per  annum,  which  he  held  from 
government,  was  not  a  new  one  created  for  his  especial  benefit, 
and  that  his  paper  was  controlled  according  to  his  own  edi 
torial  judgment.  To  this  "  An  American  "  rejoined,  stating  the 
charge  still  more  offensively,  and  commenting  on  Freneau's 
affidavit  as  evasive  in  its  language. 


*  See  5  Hamilton's  Republic,  43 ;   Hamilton's  Works,  August  18th, 
1792. 


1792.  HAMILTON    ATTACKS   JEFFERSON.  209 

"  T.  L.,"  "  An  American,"  and  a  third  writer,  "A  Plain, 
Honest  Man,"  were  no  other  than  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
himself,  who  always  had  a  fancy  for  accosting  the  public  in 
strange  disguises,  after  the  example  of  the  Eastern  Caliph. 
This  charge  against  Freneau,  which  was  not  wholly  false,  he 
thrust  home  remorselessly,  though  positive  evidence,  which  he 
tried  to  procure  through  Boudinot  and  Dayton,  was  not  forth 
coming.  But  Freneau  was  only  the  man  behind  the  arras; 
for  it  was  his  patron,  Jefferson,  that  Hamilton  sought  with  his 
rapier's  point.  Indeed,  "  An  American  "  attacked  Jefferson 
personally  in  these  letters  as  emulous  of  heading  a  party  whose 
politics  have  aimed  at  deposing  the  national  authority,  as  an 
Anti-Constitutionalist  at  the  outset,  as  one  who,  while  in  Eu 
rope,  had  suggested  a  dishonest  transfer  of  the  French  debt, 
as  a  man  who  now  arraigned  the  principal  measures  of  govern 
ment  with  indiscreet  if  not  indecent  warmth. 

Jefferson,  who  was  at  the  South,  made  no  reply,  but  in  his 
absence  others  defended  him  in  the  press,  lifting  the  visor  which 
had  ill-concealed  the  features  of  the  Federal  Hector.* 

Washington  comprehended  the  situation  at  once,  and  writ 
ing  from  Mount  Vernon  to  each  of  his  two  secretaries,  tried 
to  compose  the  strife,  avowing  it  as  his  earnest  wish  and 
hope  that,  instead  of  these  wounding  suspicious  and  irritating 
charges,  there  might  be  mutual  forbearance  on  both  sides, 
without  which  the  wheels  of  government  would  clog,  and  its 
enemies  triumph.f 

Jefferson,  responding  from  Monticello,  poured  out  his 
wounded  feelings  in  a  passionate  strain  unusual  to  him,  ad 
mitting  freely  that  dissensions  had  taken  place  among  those 
nearest  Washington  and  his  deep  concern  at  the  fact.  He 
declares  that  he,  for  his  part,  embarked  in  the  government 
with  a  determination  not  to  intermeddle  with  the  legislative 
or  other  departments,  and  in  general  has  adhered  to  it,  while 
Hamilton's  course  has  been  the  reverse,  caballing  against  State 


*  See  Boston  Centinel,  Fenno's  Gazette,  etc.;  also  5  Hamilton's  Re 
public.  John  C.  Hamilton  thinks  a  letter  on  the  side  of  Jefferson,  signed 
"  Aristides,"  was  begun  by  Madison  and  continued  by  some  one  else. 

f  Washington's  Writings,  August  23d,  26th,  1792. 

VOL.  i.— 18 


210  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

measures,  and  seeking  a  vicious  influence  over  members  of 
Congress.  "  That  I  have  utterly,  in  my  private  conversations, 
disapproved  of  the  system  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury," 
he  proceeds,  "I  acknowledge  and  avow,  and  this  was  not 
merely  a  speculative  difference ;"  but  he  has  not  intrigued 
with  his  own  friends  in  the  legislature,  but  left  them  to  pur 
sue  their  sense  of  duty.  Turning  to  the  charges  made  against 
him  in  Fenno's  Gazette  by  Hamilton, — "for  neither,"  he  says, 
"the  style,  matter,  nor  venom  of  the  pieces  alluded  to  can 
leave  a  doubt  of  their  author," — he  proceeds  to  answer  them  ; 
declaring  that,  as  to  funding  measures,  no  man  is  more 
ardently  intent  than  himself  to  see  the  public  debt  soon  and 
sacredly  paid  off,  but  that  while  he  wishes  it  paid  off  to-mor 
row,  Hamilton  wishes  it  never  to  be  paid,  but  always  to  be  a 
thing  wherewith  to  corrupt  and  manage  the  legislature. 

Contrasting  with  bitterness  the  patronage  of  the  treasury 
with  that  of  his  own,  he  explains,  but  not  with  entire  candor, 
the  circumstances  of  Freneau's  employment  as  his  translating 
clerk,  and  admits  special  paragraphs  he  has  had  inserted  in 
the  Gazette,  and  his  general  expectation  that  Freneau  would 
chastise  aristocratical  and  monarchical  writers  and  give 
place  to  articles  other  than  those  of  the  Davila  stamp,  though 
not  criticising  proceedings  of  government.  But  he  solemnly 
denies  other  or  more  intimate  influence  over  Freneau  exerted 
on  his  part,  or  the  procurement  of  insertions  of  words  or 
sentences  in  his  or  any  other  paper  to  which  his  own  name  or 
that  of  his  own  office  was  not  affixed.  "  As  to  the  merits  or 
demerits  of  his  paper,"  he  adds,  "  they  certainly  concern  me 
not.  He  and  Fenno  are  rivals  for  the  public  favor.  The  one 
courts  them  by  flattery,  the  other  by  censure,  and  I  believe  it 
will  be  admitted  that  the  one  has  been  as  servile  as  the  other 
severe.  But  is  not  the  dignity  and  even  decency  of  govern 
ment  committed,  when  one  of  its  principal  ministers  enlists 
himself  as  an  anonymous  writer  or  paragraphist  for  either  the 
one  or  the  other  of  them  ?  No  government  ought  to  be  with 
out  censors,  and  where  the  press  is  free  no  one  ever  will.  If 
virtuous  it  need  not  fear  the  fair  operation  of  attack  and  de 
fence.  Nature  has  given  to  man  no  other  means  of  sifting 
out  the  truth,  either  in  religion,  law,  or  politics.  I  think  it  as 


1792.  CABINET   DISSENSION.  211 

honorable  to  the  government  neither  to  know  nor  to  notice  its 
sycophants  or  censors,  as  it  would  be  undignified  and  criminal 
to  pamper  the  former  and  persecute  the  latter." 

For  the  rest,  Jefferson  renews  his  determination  to  retire 
the  next  4th  of  March,  to  which  day  he  looks  forward,  "  with 
the  longing  of  a  wave-worn  mariner,"  and  while  assuring 
Washington  from  a  regard  for  his  personal  feelings  to  defer 
newspaper  controversy  meantime,  he  reserves  the  right  of  ap 
pealing  then  to  the  country,  if  he  deems  it  fit  for  his  justifica 
tion,  and  this  over  his  own  signature.* 

Hamilton's  reply  was  in  language  scarcely  more  temperate  ; 
but  though  filial  in  tone  towards  his  chief,  and  apparently 
desirous  of  smoothing  the  path  of  his  administration  as  far  as 
possible,  he  declined  for  the  present  to  recede  from  the  course 
into  which  he  conceived  that  the  Secretary  of  State  had  forced 
him.  To  this  conduct  he  declared  himself  compelled  by  reasons 
both  public  and  personal.  "  I  know,"  says  Hamilton,  writing 
from  Philadelphia,  "that  I  have  been  an  object  of  uniform 
opposition  from  Mr.  Jefferson  from  the  moment  of  his  coining 
to  the  city  of  New  York  to  enter  upon  his  present  office.  I 
know  from  the  most  authentic  sources  that  I  have  been  the 
frequent  subject  of  the  most  unkind  whispers  and  insinuations 
from  the  same  quarter.  I  have  long  seen  a  formed  party  in 
the  legislature  under  his  auspices  bent  upon  my  subversion. 
I  cannot  doubt,  from  the  evidence  I  possess,  that  the  National 
Gazette  was  instituted  by  him  for  political  purposes,  and  that 
one  leading  object  of  it  has  been  to  render  me  and  all  the 
measures  connected  with  my  department  as  odious  as  possible." 
But  on  his  own  part,  he  proceeds  to  say,  he  never  counte 
nanced  retaliation  but  rather  the  reverse,  and  it  was  only 
when  he  ffo  longer  doubted  that  there  was  an  organized  party 
deliberately  bent  upon  the  subversion  of  measures  which  in  its 
consequences  would  subvert  the  government — particularly  in 
imperilling  public  credit  and  making  the  funding  system 
odious — that  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  take  his  present 
course,  f 

*  Jefferson's  Works,  Scptemlwr  9th,  ]  792. 
f  Hamilton's  Works,  September  9th,  1792. 


212  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAT.  IT. 

So  far  as  Hamilton's  object  in  this  newspaper  attack  may 
have  been  to  drive  Jefferson  from  the  cabinet,  he  had  been 
anticipated,  as  we  have  seen,  by  Jefferson's  own  offer  to  retire. 
With  regard  to  making  him  obnoxious  to  the  people,  the 
effort  was  futile,  for  the  unimpassioned  public  will  never  re 
buke  a  citizen  for  setting  up  a  censor  of  those  W7ho  rule ;  and, 
besides,  the  present  accuser  was  perceived  to  be  the  prosecutor 
of  his  own  complaint.  Indeed,  as  a  politician,  Hamilton  was 
making  the  constant  mistake  of  contending  in  single  combat. 
So  intent  was  he  upon  the  thing  to  be  said  that  he  heeded  too 
little  the  manner  of  saying  it.  His  style  of  writing,  as  of 
speaking,  was  clear,  compact,  strong ;  his  sentences  glittered 
like  icicles,  and  yet  there  was  a  dictatorial  tone  in  his  utter 
ances  which  betrayed  a  mind  too  full  of  its  own  cogitations  to 
permit  those  of  others  to  ferment  there.  But  Jefferson's  easy, 
half-careless  style,  which  presented  ideas  in  striking  imagery 
or  felicitous  turns  of  expression,  enveloped  his  sinewy  argu 
ments,  and  though  his  writings  might  betray  partisan  action, 
yet  a  strain  of  humane  tenderness,  of  hopefulness,  and  lofty 
zeal  appeared,  while  he  seemed  to  lean  upon  the  counsels  of 
those  he  was  guiding.  With  Hamilton  it  wasalways  tited'armee, 
and  often  did  those  he  sought  to  persuade  turn  angrily,  as 
though  to  escape  being  bayoneted  by  his  argument.  In  all 
of  Hamilton's  voluminous  correspondence  there  is  not  to  be 
found  a  phrase  expressing  hearty  admiration,  either  of  the 
American  people  or  of  the  great  leaders  with  whom  he  associ 
ated,  though  his  words  of  discontent  or  disparagement  were 
not  few  ;  and  this  was  because,  while  he  acknowledged  the  need 
of  co-operating  with  others  and  submitting  often  to  their  views, 
he  never,  from  the  time  he  rode,  a  stripling  American  officer, 
upon  his  artillery  wagon,  felt  so  young  or  so  inexperienced  as 
to  need  the  prop  of  an  older  man's  advice. 

In  view  of  a  new  Presidential  election  a  law  had  passed 
Congress  which  prescribed  the  electoral  formalities,  and  desig 
nated  the  president  pro  tern,  of  the  Senate  as  the  proper  head 
of  the  nation,  in  case  both  the  Presidency  and  Vice-Presi 
dency  should  become  vacant.*  The  election  of  electors  was 

*  Act  March  1st,  1792,  c.  8. 


1792.  NEW    PRESIDENTIAL    ELECTION.  213 

held  in  the  fkll.  It  needed  only  Washington's  consent  to 
serve  again  to  render  him  the  unanimous  choice,  both  of  the 
electors  and  the  country,  for  the  first  office.  Hence  the  efforts 
of  the  opposition  party  were  directed  to  capturing  the  Vice- 
Presidency  and  as  many  Congressional  districts,  under  the 
new  apportionment,  as  possible.  In  the  latter  respect  they 
were  quite  successful;  but  John  Adams  polled  the  Federal 
vote  handsomely  for  the  second  office,  and  was  re-elected,  all 
the  electoral  votes  of  New  England,  New  Jersey,  Delaware, 
Maryland,  and  all  but  one  in  Pennsylvania  and  South  Caro 
lina  being  cast  for  him.  The  strongest  man  of  the  opposition, 
Jefferson,  was  constitutionally  ineligible  as  Vice-President, 
while  another,  a  Virginian,  obtained  the  electoral  vote  for 
President;  so  George  Clinton  received  the  support  of  the  new 
party,  carrying  the  entire  electoral  colleges  of  New  York, 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  one  vote  from  Penn 
sylvania.  Jefferson  was  complimented  by  the  vote  of  Ken 
tucky.  Burr  had  a  vote  in  South  Carolina. 

Clinton's  large  following,  notwithstanding  his  objectionable 
record,  showed  not  only  that  the  new  party  was  under  good 
discipline,  but  that  the  alliance  besides  was  a  close  one  be 
tween  the  new  Constitutional  Republicans  and  the  old  Anti- 
Federalists.  That  Clinton,  too,  could  have  procured  the  en 
tire  electoral  vote  of  his  own  State  this  year  was  still  more 
singular;  for  in  the  spring  election  for  governor  he  had  been 
actually  defeated  at  the  polls  by  Jay,  and  was  only  kept  in 
office  by  an  adroit  artifice  not  at  all  creditable  to  his  sup 
porters.  Jay  and  Clinton,  as  it  appears,  ran  so  nearly  to 
gether  that  a  few  hundred  votes  turned  the  scales  ;  but  in  cer 
tain  of  the  counties  which  gave  Jay  a  majority  the  returns 
were  not  transmitted  by  the  sheriffs  after  the  precise  require 
ments  of  law  ;  hence,  by  seven  to  four,  the  State  board  of  can 
vassers  determined  to  throw  out  these  returns,  and,  in  fact, 
burned  them  up  afterwards,  which  gave  the  technical  majority 
for  governor  to  Clinton.  Burr  had  played  to  secure  the 
Federal  State  candidacy  for  himself,  but  upon  Hamilton's 
open  espousal  of  Jay  he  tacked  about,  and  it  was  his  legal 
argument  before  the  canvassers  upon  which  they  rested  the 
justification  of  their  conduct.  There  was  intense  excitement 


214  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

throughout  the  State  over  this  inequitable  count ;  friends  of 
liberty  in  New  York  city  called  a  mass  meeting  in  front  of 
Trinity  church,  several  duels  grew  out  of  the  political  im 
broglio,  and  Jay's  more  ardent  supporters  were  for  escorting 
him  to  the  State  Capital  and  there  inaugurating  him,  whether 
peaceably  or  forcibly.  But  the  Chief  Justice,  who  was  a  mail 
of  peace,  soothed  the  angry  commotion,  and  at  length  pre 
vailed  upon  his  supporters  to  wait  until  the  next  election  and 
then  redress  their  wrongs  at  the  ballot  box.* 

The  serious  opposition  of  the  mountaineers  in  Pennsylvania 
and  North  Carolina  to  the  excise  on  distilled  spirits  had  not 
insensibly  operated  upon  the  elections,  besides  stimulating 
Hamilton  in  his  open  assault  upon  Jefferson.  Freneau's  Ga 
zette  had  gone  very  far  beyond  Jefferson  and  Madison  in  ex 
citing  opposition  to  a  system  which  they  themselves  admitted 
could  not,  after  the  assumption  act,  be  dispensed  with ;  influ 
encing  Peunsylvanians,  in  fact,  to  organize  for  embarrassing 
the  execution  of  the  laws.  Scotch  Presbyterian  settlers,  hon 
est  but  hasty  in  action,  occupied  much  of  the  Western  Penn 
sylvania  region,  long  sore  over  disputes  which  antedated  the 
new  Federal  government.  Among  the  Alleghanies  were  most 
of  the  whiskey  stills  whose  product  was  taxed.  Under  the 
excise  law  Federal  inspectors  were  stationed  in  each  county, 
but  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Pennsylvania  would  not  per 
mit  men  to  take  the  odious  office,  and  in  Washington  County, 
where  one  of  the  inhabitants  allowed  his  house  to  be  used  for 
an  office  of  inspection,  the  mob  compelled  the  office  to  be  re 
moved  under  threats  of  burning  the  house  down  and  tarring 
and  feathering:  the  owner.  At  Pittsburg;  a  conven- 

August  21.      .  -iiii 

tion  or  the  tour  western  counties  assembled,  whose 
proceedings,  however,  were  not  more  violent  than  to  pass  re 
solves  which  declared  that  internal  taxes  upon  consumption 
must  end  in  destroying  liberty,  proclaiming  and  avowing  it 
to  be  their  duty  to  persist  in  remonstrances  to  Congress  and 
"  in  every  other  legal  measure"  that  might  obstruct  the  oper 
ation  of  the  law.  They  expressed,  too,  the  determination  to 


*  See  newspapers,  May-June,   1792;    5  Hamilton's  Kepublic;    11 
American  Museum. 


1792.  EXCISE   COMMOTIONS.  215 

bold  no  intercourse  with  those  who  accepted  office  for  collect 
ing  the  whiske}'-  tax,  and  to  withhold  from  them  the  comforts 
of  life.  At  this  convention  Marshall,  one  of  the  early  settlers 
and  a  man  of  influence,  Bradford,  a  pettifogger,  whose  ambi 
tious  schemes  developed  later,  and  the  since  famous  Albert 
Gallatin  took  leading  parts.* 

Hamilton  was  for  instant  repression,  regarding  the  language 
of  these  resolutions  as  a  high  misdemeanor.  The  President, 
now  at  Mount  Vernon,  was  less  firmly  persuaded  of  the  jus 
tice  or  policy  of  such  a  course,  and,  comprehending  the  ex 
treme  delicacy  of  his  task,  agreed  only  to  issue  a  proclama 
tion,  drafted  by  Hamilton,  and  approved  at  Philadelphia  by 
Knox  and  Randolph  ;  first,  however,  sending  it  to  Monticello 
(against  Hamilton's  advice),  that  Jefferson  might  see  and 
countersign  it.  The  effect  of  this  proclamation  was, 
on  the  whole,  tranquillizing,  and  in  North  Carolina, 
more  especially,  the  excise  disturbances  ceased.  Prosecutions 
were  afterwards  ordered,  at  Hamilton's  desire,  against  those 
concerned  in  the  Pittsburg  convention,  but  nothing  could  be 
found  to  sustain  an  indictment.")" 

When   Congress  met,  November  5th,   the  excise   troubles 
made  a  prominent  feature  of  the  President's  mes 
sage.     Little  was  accomplished,  however,  while  this 
second  session  lasted,  in   respect  of  legislation  upon   any  sub 
ject  ;  and  the  four  months  which  remained  were  given  over  to 
fruitless  debate   for  the  most  part,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
House  opponents  of  the  Federalists  showed  themselves  elated 
at  the  prospect  of  ruling  in  the  next  Congress,  while  at  pres 
ent  they  were  in  the  minority. 

The  Indian  policy  of  the  government  came  up  under  vari 
ous  aspects,  but  the  only  important  result  reached  was  in  the 
shape  of  an  act,  founded  in  Washington's  recommendation, 
which  regulated  the  trade  with  Indian  tribes  by  requiring 

*  Gallatin  afterwards  regretted  his  connection  with  this  convention, 
for,  though  the  proceedings  were  not  directly  unlawful,  they  tended  to 
lawlessness.  Adams's  Life  of  Gallatin. 

t  See  correspondence,  Washington  and  Hamilton,  August-September, 


216  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

that  traders  should  be  licensed  by  the  President,  declaring 
certain  crimes,  and  forbidding  all  irregular  purchases  of  land 
in  the  Indian  country.*  The  present  Indian  situation  was 
far  from  promising;  military  operations  were  delayed,  the 
War  Department  was  not  vigorous,  enlistments  went  slowly, 
and  Wayne  had  encamped  at  Pittsburg  for  the  winter,  unable 
to  take  the^offensive.  This  autumn  the  Northwest  Indians, 
though  not  actively  aggressive,  were  implacable,  and  their  de 
fection  had  begun  to  extend  to  the  Southwestern  country, 
where  the  Spanish  authorities  intrigued  to  prevent  the  Creek" 
treaty  of  1790  from  going  into  effect,  and  part  of  the  Chero 
kee  nation  had  raided  upon  our  citizens  in  the  Tennessee 
country.  Little  had  come  of  Washington's  efforts  towards  a 
general  pacification,  as  he  admitted  in  his  message,  and  offi 
cers  of  our  army,  sent  with  conciliating  messages  to  the  North 
west  tribes,  had  been  barbarously  murdered. 

There  was  now  much  harsh  criticism  in  Congress  of  the 
Indian  war,  with  its  great  cost  and  little  gains,  and  when  the 
House  report  on  the  St.  Clair  expedition  came  up  from  the 
previous  session,  severe  reflections  were  cast  upon  the  War 
and  Treasury  management ;  but  this  report  being  recommitted 
a  later  one  tended  to  exonerate  Knox  and  Hamilton  and  put 
more  of  the  blame  of  failure  upon  St.  Clair  himself. 

The  chief  move  of  the  re-publican  part  of  Congress  was 
now  against  Hamilton  personally,  and  a  concentrated  effort 
was  made  to  break  him  down  as  he  had  tried  to  break  down 
Jefferson  ;  but  the  effort  signally  failed. 

The  people,  as  the  late  campaign  showed,  were  strongly  for 
entering  upon  the  regular  reduction  of  the  public  debt,  a  sys 
tem  to  which  Hamilton's  enemies  constantly  alleged  that  he 
was  inimical.  The  opening  message  announced  the  Presi 
dent's  own  readiness  to  commence  such  a  course ;  but  when  it 
was  proposed  to  call  upon  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
report  a  suitable  plan  for  that  purpose,  so  loud  was  the  clamor 
against  executive  interference  with  the  right  of  the  House  to 
originate  its  own  money  bills,  that  the  resolution  of  reference 
was  carried  with  difficulty,  though  in  strict  accordance  with 

*  Act  March  1st,  1793,  Q.  19. 


1792-93.  IIAMITTON   DISTRUSTED.  217 

Congressional  precedent,  and  in  a  House  still  controlled  by 
the  secretary's  own  party  friends.  In  the  report  which  Ham 
ilton  was  thus  reluctantly  permitted  to  hand  in,  he  expressed 
himself  strongly  in  favor  of  extinguishing  the  Federal  debt; 
but,  in  view  of  the  present  Indian  war,  he  professed  his  ina 
bility  to  meet  regular  interest  and  the  payment  of  the  annual 
instalments,  besides  current  expenses,  unless  one  of  two  courses 
were  taken:  (1)  To  negotiate  new  loans  under  the  existing 
pledges  at  lower  rates  of  interest,  or  (2)  to  lay  an  additional 
tax.  Preferring  the  latter  course,  he  recommended  the  levy 
of  an  excise  tax  on  horses  and  carriages.  This  put  his  oppo 
nents  in  the  dilemma  of  appearing  less  inclined  than  himself 
to  begin  the  work  of  reduction  in  earnest,  or  else  of  entering 
further  upon  a  system  of  taxation  which  they  detested.  With 
reference,  at  the  same  time,  to  paying  up  at  once  the  $2,000,- 
000  loan,  now  running  at  G  per  cent.,  which  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  had  advanced  as  an  offset  to  the  stock  subscrip 
tion  of  the  government,  Hamilton  proposed  its  payment  by 
borrowing  the  sum  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest,  appropriating 
part  of  each  dividend  on  the  government  stock  to  paying  the 
interest  as  it  should  accrue.  As  to  this  latter  scheme  it  was 
objected,  when  a  bill,  drawn  in  accordance  with  the  secretary's 
views,  was  presented  to  the  House,  that  there  was  bank  favor 
itism  at  the  bottom  of  it,  not  to  speak  of  the  possible  douceurs 
in  negotiating  a  new  loan.  And  Giles's  suggestion  that  the 
United  States  should  sell  out  its  stock  instead,  so  alarmed  the 
bank  men  that  they  allowed  a  bill  to  be  substituted  which 
provided  for  no  more  than  the  instalment  of  the  $2,000,000 
actually  due.*  As  to  increasing  internal  taxation  at  this  time 
for  the  redemption  of  the  debt,  the  House  took  no  action. f 

But  the  distrust  of  Hamilton,  his  plans,  and  his  figures 
did  not  stop  here.  The  Virginia  delegation,  under  the  nom 
inal  lead  of  Giles  in  the  House,  presently  made  sharp  inquest 
of  the  Treasury  Department  and  the  secretary's  management.;); 
This  new  assault  consisted  in  a  cumulative  series  of  calls  upon 

*  Act  March  2d,  1793,  c.  25. 
f  Annals  of  Congress,  1792-93. 

J  It  is  claimed  that  drafts  in  the  Department  of  State  show  that  Mad 
ison,  who  voted  with  Giles,  directed  this  attack.     0  Hamilton's  Republic-. 
VOL.  i.— 19 


218  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

the  President  and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  explain  cer 
tain  transactions  in  which  the  latter  figured.  The  inquest, 
which  commenced  towards  the  close  of  December,  sought  to 
lay  open  the  management  of  all  financial  affairs  of  the  depart 
ment  except  excise  and  customs,  including  the  negotiation  of 
foreign  loans,  the  use  of  moneys  which  had  come  into  the 
sinking  fund,  the  deposit  of  unapplied  proceeds,  and,  what 
was  more  startling,  an  apparent  discrepancy  in  the  public  ac 
counts  to  the  extent  of  $1,500,000. 

Hamilton  and  his  friends,  with  great  discretion,  gave  the 
inquiry  full  scope,  and  though  there  hardly  appeared  time 
enough  to  answer  the  questions  put  to  him  in  this  short  ses 
sion,  the  secretary  shut  himself  up  and  worked  with  his  sub 
ordinates  night  and  day  to  meet  the  investigation,  sending 
in  his  replies  to  the  interrogatories  by  instalments  as  fast  as 
they  were  prepared. 

It  soon  appeared  that,  however  intricate  might  appear  the 
operations  of  his  department,  and  whether  or  not,  as  charged, 
he  purposely  kept  them  so,  Hamilton  held  the  thread  very 
firmly  himself.  He  disposed  of  the  most  offensive  imputation 
of  all  by  explaining  the  bookkeeping  method  he  pursued. 
Of  favoritism  in  the  suspected  quarters  he  fairly  acquitted 
himself,  and  it  was  proved  clearly  that  his  general  loan  oper 
ations  had  constantly  redounded  to  the  credit  of  the  govern 
ment,  a  point  in  his  favor  which  he  took  care  should  not  be 
concealed.  It  looks  as  if  Hamilton  evaded  inquiry  somewhat 
into  the  names  of  the  agents  he  employed  and  their  recom 
pense,  as  though  conscious  of  being  vulnerable  on  this  point, 
for  he  confined  his  defence  rather  to  the  display  of  a  manage 
ment  Correct  and  positively  beneficial  to  the  public,  but  haste 
and  inadvertence  may  be  the  true  explanation  of  this.  The 
worst  that  was  actually  inferred  from  a  comparison  of  his 
statements  appears  to  have  been  an  admission,  on  his  part, 
that  he  had  assumed  authority,  in  certain  instances,  without 
strict  regard  to  the  letter  of  the  law  or  the  suitable  sanction 
of  others;  but  this  course  had  apparently  produced  no  real 
mischief  to  the  country,  and  betrayed  little  more  than  a  char 
acteristic  disiegard  of  formal  restraint  in  his  zeal  to  accom 
plish  not  uncreditable  results. 


1792-93.  HAMILTON    INVESTIGATED.  219 

Upon  this  last  revelation,  however,  Giles  sought  to  press  reso 
lutions  of  censure,  notwithstanding  the  Federalists  had  pointed 
out  quite  impressively  how  unhandsome  it  must  be  to  condemn 
a  public  officer  upon  such  proof,  and  without  first  affording  the 
opportunity  for  testimony  and  a  deliberate  investigation.  The 
division  of  the  House  quickly  showed  that  Giles  had  overshot 
his  mark,  and  rallying  with  unconcealed  delight  as  their  op 
ponents  drew  back  Hamilton's  friends  accepted  the  issue 
instantly  upon  these  written  questions  and  answers.  A  vote 
was  forced  upon  these  resolutions  one  by  one,  which  complained 
of  Hamilton's  technical  disregard  of  legal  restraints 

?  ..        March. 

in  certain  instances,  and  a  night  session  procured 

their  defeat  by  a  majority  large  enough   to  be  claimed    an 

ample    vindication    of    their    favorite    against    foolish    and 

invidious    persecutors.       Madison    voted    with    Giles   in   the 

minority.* 

But  it  was  the  bad  management  of  the  Virginia  opposition, 
and  their  indiscreet  haste  in  hastening  an  investigation  before 
a  House  controlled  by  the  opposite  party,  at  a  season  when  it 
was  impossible  to  expect  clear  and  full  testimony  to  be  col 
lated  upon  the  involved  transactions  of  the  treasury,  which 
here  most  surely  humiliated  them.  Giles  was  but  a  sledge 
hammer  orator,  and  those  who  had  sought  most  earnestly  to 
unravel  Hamilton,  were  by  no  means  able,  on  matters  of 
finance,  to  cope  with  him. 

After  all,  the  secretary's  supporters  were  not  strong  enough 
to  carry  any  of  the  financial  measures  he  had  recommended. 
And  with  the  exception  of  a  new  registry  act,  which  was 
framed  in  the  interests  of  vessels  wholly  owned  and  com 
manded  by  citizens  of  the  United  States,')"  and  an  extradition 
act  which  provided  that  interstate  fugitives  should  be  re 
stored  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
besides  the  Indian  act  already  referred  to,  this  session  of  the 
second  Congress  was  barren  of  important  results.  The  fugitive 
slave  sections  of  this  extradition  act,  which  had  originated  in 
the  Senate,  attracted  no  apparent  attention  in  the  House,  and 


*  See  5  Hamilton's  Republic;  Annuls  of  Congress,  1793. 
f  Act  Deci'inber  olst,  1792,  c.  1. 


220  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  II. 

very  few  voted  against  the  bill ;  and  yet  in  after  years  they 
gave  a  political  direction  to  the  nation  far  beyond  any  other 
measure  of  the  present  Congress.  Thus  frequently  does  it 
happen  that  laws  which  most  powerfully  impress  the  social 
manners  and  destiny  of  a  whole  people  are  silently  enacted 
by  the  legislators  who  wrangle  bitterly  over  measures  which 
may  prove  of  the  slightest  consequence.* 

*  Act  February  5th,  1793. 


1793.  THE   NEW   INAUGURATION.  221 


CHAPTER  III. 

SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  GEOKGE  WASHINGTON. 

SECTION  I. 

PERIOD  OF  THIRD  CONGRESS. 
MARCH  4,  1793,— MARCH  3,  1795. 

WASHINGTON'S  second  inauguration,  in  conformity  with 
the  advice  of  his  cabinet,  was  devoid  of  special  ceremonial. 
He  took  the  oath  of  office  in  the  Senate-chamber  in  presence 
of  the  heads  of  departments  and  other  high  officials,  the  for 
eign  ministers,  and  the  Senators,  besides  a  large  portion  of 
the  late  House;  and  a  vast  crowd  of  spectators  so  blocked  the 
entrance  that  the  ushers  with  their  white  wands  had  110  little 
difficulty  in  opening  a  way  as  the  President  emerged  from  his 
state  coach  and  ascended  the  steps,  with  his  usual  deliberation. 
The  oath  was  administered  by  Justice  Gushing,  and  Wash 
ington  read  a  short  inaugural  address  from  manuscript  in  a 
clear  and  audible  voice,  after  which  he  retired.* 

During  the  period  of  Washington's  second  term,  emigration 
to  the  United  States  attracted  much  interest  in  the  Old  World 
and  the  New,  and  it  seemed  to  our  citizens  as  if  all  Europe 
were  flowing  in  upon  them.  There  were  refugees  from  France 
and  the  French  West  Indies;  English,  Irish,  and  German  la 
borers.  The  opening  of  our  Western  country  to  population, 
and  the  constant  demand  for  labor  in  a  new  and  ambitious 
nation,  largely  explained  this,  and  doubtless  the  orderly  and 
liberal  administration,  besides, of  a  republic  founded  in  equality 
of  human  rights,  made  America  seem  the  land  of  promise 
when  contrasted  with  the  old  countries,  at  present  distracted 
with  war,  and  likely  to  become  impoverished  whether  one 


*  See  Westcott's  History  of  Philadelphia. 


222  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

political  system  or  another  triumphed.  Our  administration 
desired,  for  the  sake  of  improving  the  new  soil,  to  stimulate 
this  influx  of  humanity,  which  Old  World  monarchy  might 
have  favored  for  different  reasons ;  and  one  of  Washington's 
favorite  notions,  as  the  time  of  his  final  retirement  from  office 
drew  near,  was  to  introduce  skilled  farmers  from  England 
and  Scotland,  who  might  give  to  America  the  benefit  of  their 
experience  and  economical  methods.* 

A  handbook,  prepared  in  1793  at  the  Treasury  Department, 
gives  a  succinct  view  of  the  condition  of  the  United  States  at 
that  date,  and  sets  forth  the  prospective  advantages  afforded 
to  families  seeking  a  new  home  in  America.  By  Thomas 
Cooper,  too,  an  Englishman  of  liberal  tendencies,  the  same 
flattering  picture  of  American  life  is  also  presented  as  the  re 
sult  of  his  own  personal  tour  of  inspection.  A  land  of  liberty 
was  here  pictured,  where  public  credit  stood  firmly,  where  the 
taxes  were  light,  and  where  a  happy  mediocrity  of  fortune 
prevailed,  instead  of  those  depressing  contrasts  of  wealth  and 
poverty  with  which  Europe  was  sadly  familiar.f 

Land  and  landed  products  were  the  great  source  of  our 
national  wealth,  as  thus  exhibited.  Yet  here  was  a  consider 
able  commerce,  it  was  shown,  encouraged  by  drawbacks  and 
the  absence  of  all  export  duties.  More  ships  were  built  in  the 
United  States  in  1792  than  in  any  former  year  since  the  set 
tlement  of  the  colonies,  and  the  supply  of  vessels  still  increased. 
A  large  tonnage  had  become  engaged  in  the  coasting  trade  of 
the  States,  also  in  the  cod  and  whale  fisheries.  American 
imports,  consisting  chiefly  in  those  articles  which  contributed  to 
comfort,  but  to  some  extent  in  luxuries  also,  had  not  swollen 
in  proportion  to  the  advance  of  wealth  and  population,  a  fact 
chiefly  owing,  it  \\ould  appear,  to  the  rapid  development  of  na 
tive  manufactures.  Breadstuffs,  working  animals,  and  the  raw 
materials  applicable  to  extensive  manufactures,  constituted  the 
staple  of  an  American  export  trade  which  now  lay  open  to  all 

*  Washington  corresponded  with  Englishmen  of  influence  with  a 
view  to  letting  out  his  estate  at  Mount  Vernon  for  such  experiments. 
See  II.  Parkinson's  Travels  (1798-1800),  Preface. 

f  Tench  Coxe's  View  of  the  United  States ;  Thomas  Cooper's  Infor 
mation  liespecting  America. 


1793.  NATIONAL   RESOURCES.  223 

nations  excepting  those  of  alien  enemies.  All  ships  left  our 
ports  fully  laden  except  perhaps  those  which  were  concerned 
in  the  .East  Indian  trade. 

Manufactures  had  been  steadily  growing  since  1789.  These 
consisted  still  of  articles  of  necessity  rather  than  the  products 
of  elegance  and  refinement.  Coarse  clothing,  pottery,  iron 
implements,  maple  sugar,  and  materials  for  house  and  ship 
building  were  thus  turned  out.  Much  was  hand  work,  and  it 
was  almost  universal  for  farmers'  families  at  the  North  to  turn 
their  leisure  hours  to  account  by  engaging  in  some  such  house 
hold  occupation,  under  the  manufacturer's  directions,  and  so 
combining  t^vo  pursuits.  Factories  were  small,  employing 
little  capital ;  each  individual  located  his  buildings  where  he 
found  good  water-power  and  access  to  a  market  town,  nor  was 
the  mill-owner  ashamed  to  be  found,  with  his  sons,  up  to  the 
elbows  in  dye-stuffs  and  drudgery.  Large  mill  towns,  with  a 
distinctive  mill  population  and  factory  pursuits  closely  sub 
divided,  did  not,  as  yet,  exist. 

But,  most  of  all,  the  United  States  was  a  nation  of  farmers 
and  planters,  gaining  a  livelihood  from  the  soil ;  and,  with 
land  cheap,  the  cost  of  labor  high,  and  room  for  all,  the 
European  welcomed  the  prospect  of  gaining  an  honest  liveli 
hood  in  a  country  where  all  were  equals,  and  a  man  could 
marry  and  rear  a  family  without  the  depressing  thought  that 
for  each  new  mouth  to  be  fed  his  scanty  crust  must  be  broken 
into  smaller  fragments.  To  the  down-trodden  of  the  Old 
World  such  a  prospect  was  most  inspiriting,  and  the  hope,  too, 
of  owning  the  fee  of  his  own  farm,  instead  of  having  to  rent 
the  land  from  a  peer  or  a  peer's  tenant,  and  so  devote  the 
chief  fruits  of  the  earth  to  pampering  others  in  idleness. 

To  the  foreigner  seeking  to  become  a  farmer  and  freeman 
in  the  New  World,  the  Middle  section  of  the  United  States 
offered  at  this  time  the  greatest  inducements.  New  England 
appeared  a  sterile  region,  and  the  soil  was  here  so  parcelled 
out  among  a  large  and  thrifty  people  that  the  price  of  lands 
was  high  ;  her  own  sons  had  began  to  roam  westward  for 
these  very  reasons.  From  the  Southern  States  he  was  kept 
because  of  a  climate  unfavorable  to  toil  and  still  more  unfa 
vorable  institutions.  The  far  West,  as  yet,  was  for  those  only 


224  HISTORY   OF   THE    UXITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

who  were  willing  to  endure  the  greatest  hardship  and  social 
privations ;  and  such  had  become  the  dread  of  Indian  massa 
cre  since  our  late  military  disasters  that  the  pioneer  slept 
with  his  loaded  rifle  by  his  side,  and  started  at  the  screech- 
owl's  call  as  though  he  heard  the  yell  of  approaching  savages. 
To  Central  New  York  he  might  turn  with  favor,  in  whose 
happy  valleys  the  strange  mixture  of  white  and  red  inhabi 
tants  was  symbolized  by  a  corresponding  fusion  of  geographical 
names — where  the  modern  Rome  and  Utica,  Syracuse  and 
happy  Palmyra  were  gradually  becoming  founded  along  the 
Mohawk  and  in  the  Oneida  and  Ontario  country.  Hither 
had  the  New  England  emigrants  resorted  in  large  numbers  of 
late.  But  rapidly  as  New  York  grew,  Pennsylvania  seemed, 
to  the  emigrant  farmer,  the  garden  State  of  America. 

Of  peasant  emigration  to  the  United  States  the  greater  part 
was  drained  from  Ireland  and  Germany.  And  it  was  quite 
customary  at  this  period  for  such  of  the  humbler  emigrants, 
Germans  more  particularly,  as  could  not  pay  their  passage,  to 
make  agreement  with  the  captain  for  selling  their  services  for 
a  suitable  term  .to  such  Americans  as  might  be  willing  to  give 
them  employment  on  their  arrival  and  advance  the  cost  of 
transportation.  These  "  redernptiouers,"  as  they  were  called, 
performed  much  menial  service  in  Philadelphia,  and  it  fre 
quently  happened  that  the  expense  of  needful  clothing  and 
supplies,  furnished  by  the  employer,  would  cause  the  term  of 
one's  contract  bondage  to  be  very  considerably  prolonged.* 

Once  free  to  choose  his  own  plans  of  life,  and  blessed  with 
spare  cash,  the  foreign  emigrant,  like  the  native  pioneer,  who 
sought  to  become  an  independent  tiller  of  the  soil,  looked 
about  for  a  suitable  spot  to  cultivate.  The  land  capitalists 
and  their  agents  approached  him,  of  course,  with  offers  of  sale, 
more  or  less  tempting,  as  to  the  tracts  they  wished  to  get  rid 
of.  Nor  by  1797  was  it  certain  that  a  capable  and  industrious 
farmer  might  not  get  thousands  of  acres  in  the  back  country 
at  a  nominal  cost,  provided  he  would  settle  and  draw  a  colony 
about  him  ;  for  that  was  the  time  when  the  load  of  wild  lands 

*  See  Travels  of  Parkinson  and  Priest ;  Cooper's  Information  ;  West- 
cott's  Philadelphia. 


1793.  THE   PIONEER   FARMER.  225 

was  a  millstone  upon  many  a  speculator's  shoulders,  and  Mor 
ris,  whose  indorsement  had  once  sustained  the  sinking  credit 
of  the  Union,  got  lodged  in  a  debtor's  prison.  A  discreet 
settler  took  care  that  his  soil  was  fertile  and  the  land  suffi 
ciently  near  to  a  good  market ;  if  there  was  a  continuous  water 
connection  with  some  prosperous  port,  all  the  better.  Hickory 
and  walnut  were  the  signs  of  rich  land  ;  that  which  bore  firs 
he  avoided,  if  possible,  as  barren  and  unproductive.  Farms 
in  the  new  country  rarely  exceeded  three  hundred  acres;  one 
hundred  and  fifty  was  a  very  fair  average. 

After  buying  his  laud  and  taking  possession  in  the  spring 
of  the  year,  the  farmer  would  cut  down  a  few  trees  to  build 
him  and  his  family  a  temporary  home.  His  neighbors,  if 
there  were  any  for  miles  about,  good-naturedly  lent  their  as 
sistance,  and  in  three  or  four  days  a  building  of  unhewn  logs 
rose  ready  for  habitation.  Roughly  put  together,  the  inter 
stices  stopped  with  rails,  calked  with  straw  or  moss  and 
daubed  with  mud,  and  the  roof  covered  with  nothing  better 
than  thin  staves  split  out  of  oak  or  ash  and  fastened  on  by 
heavy  poles  ;  such  a  dwelling  was  a  "  log  cabin  ;"  but  a  house 
of  a  better  sort,  especially  if  made  of  hewn  logs,  having  the 
crannies  neatly  stopped  with  stones  and  plaster,  and  a  shingled 
roof,  would  be  styled  a  "  log  house."  An  American  log  house, 
with  glass  windows  and  a  chimney,  was  quite  as  comfortable 
as  the  better  cottages  of  English  farmers ;  and  on  its  stoop, 
some  bright  afternoon,  might  be  seen  a  healthy  woman  await 
ing  her  husband's  return,  and  dressed  to  please  him,  who 
dandled  a  babe  in  her  arms,  while  handsome  boys  and  girls 
played  before  her  or  clung  timidly  to  her  calico  gown.  Log 
cabins,  too,  were  often  the  abode  of  a  modest  refinement, 
though  commonly  made  far  from  convenient,  for  they  were 
usually  without  windows  and  had  only  a  hole  at  the  top  for 
the  smoke  to  escape  through.* 

An  American  forest  stood  grand  in  the  mass,  the  tall  trees 
interlocking  their  branches,  with  many  a  picturesque  scene  at 
the  clearings.  But,  as  compared  with  English  woods,  their 
trunks  did  not  seem  thick  and  mossy,  nor  their  foliage  so 

~x'  See  Cooper's  Information  ;  T  M.  Harris's  Western  Tour  in  1803. 


226  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

dense  and  rich.  This  made  the  backwoodsman's  work  the 
lighter,  however,  and  the  ring  of  his  axe  was  the  bugle  of  civ 
ilization's  advancing  host.  Grubbing  the  land  he  meant  to 
cultivate,  by  removing  all  the  small  trees  and  undergrowth, 
of  which  he  made  bonfires  on  the  spot,  he  next  proceeded  to 
cut  down  as  many  trees  of  the  larger  sort  nearest  his  dwelling 
as  seemed  suitable,  girdling  others,  without  delay,  so  as  to 
destroy  the  vegetation  of  the  branches,  and  let  in  the  light 
and  air  to  his  next  season's  crop.  The  trees  thus  cut  down, 
by  splitting  and  setting  the  pieces  anglewise,  served  well  the 
purpose  of  a  temporary  rail  fence  about  his  premises;  for  reg 
ular  post  and  rail  fences  were  not  yet  to  be  thought  of,  and  it 
was  only  in  New  England  that  the  familiar  stone  walls  of  the 
old  country  appeared.  A  prudent  settler  never  undertook  to 
root  up  his  large  trees,  for  the  labor  would  come  to  more  than 
the  land  itself  was  worth,  but  he  cut  them  off  two  or  three 
feet  from  the  ground,  and  then  left  the  stumps  to  decay  at 
leisure.  It  would  be  ten  years,  perhaps,  before  such  stumps 
in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  soil  would  rot  away,  but 
farther  South  the  process  went  on  more  rapidly,  and  once 
completed  the  land  reclaimed  was  very  rich.  The  side  roots 
meantime  obstructed  the  plough  for  about  two  seasons.  More 
than  half  the  cof-t  of  clearing  the  land  in  farms  accessible  to 
manufacturing  towns  was  recompensed  by  selling  the  potash 
procured  from  burning  the  wood,  an  advantage  of  which  New 
York  settlers  in  the  Mohawk  Valley  commonly  availed  them 
selves. 

Turning  his  new  soil  in  May  with  a  ploughshare  or  har 
row,  the  settler  dropped  Indian  corn  into  the  earth,  and  was 
gladdened  by  a  large  harvest  in  October.  A  wholesome  store 
of  corrimeal  and  hominy  was  thus  laid  by  for  the  family  con 
sumption,  with  abundant  provender  besides  for  cattle  and 
poultry.  His  sheep  and  hogs,  if  he  had  any,  ranged  the  forest 
for  their  food. 

Once  a  freeholder  the  pioneer  stood  firmly,  granting  indus 
trious  habits  and  a  stock  of  good  health.  For  a  few  years, 
indeed,  it  was  a  lonely  and  rough  life,  with  little  social  com 
fort  or  relaxation  beyond  what  the  secluded  family  might  find 
in  one  another.  The  father  and  his  oldest  sons  must  roam 


1793.  THE   PIONEER   FARMER.  227 

the  woods,  with  dog  and  gun,  to  shoot  deer,  raccoons,  and 
squirrels  for  fresh  meat,  bartering  off  their  skins  with  the 
nearest  store  or  trading-house  in  order  to  procure  clothing, 
tea,  and  sugar  for  the  household,  or,  on  a  cloudy  afternoon, 
drop  the  hook  and  line  in  the  lake  or  along  the  nearest  stream 
to  secure  the  next  morning's  breakfast.  But  as  years  go  on 
the  laud  becomes  cleared,  a  few  more  acres  each  season  ;  one 
begins  raising  wheat,  tobacco,  or  other  crops  which  should 
}Tield  him  a  pecuniary  return  ;  the  kitchen  garden  and  orchards 
are  seen,  the  increase  of  his  stock  adds  to  his  wealth  and  com 
fort,  and,  still  more,  the  growth  of  a  blooming  family  of  sons 
and  daughters,  for  whose  future  he  feels  no  anxiety.  Neigh 
bors  approach  more  closely.  A  saw-mill  and  competent 
builders  appear,  and  at  length  he  moves  from  the  log  house 
into  his  more  pretentious  and  permanent  dwelling  of  boards. 
Perhaps  the  township  grows  so  rapidly  that,  ere  he  has  passed 
his  prime,  he  becomes  a  trader,  a  social  leader,  a  patriarch,  or, 
haply,  a  politician.  His  girls  grow  up  like  wild  roses.  His 
boys,  with  the  usual  allowances  for  black  sheep,  elbow  their 
way  through  the  world ;  and  upon  some  yet  uncultivated  por 
tion  of  his  tract  he  may  fence  off  the  married  son,  whose  taste 
is  not  for  roaming,  and  tell  the  young  couple  they  must  coax 
their  fortune  from  mother  nature  as  he  has  done. 

If,  however,  the  pioneer  fail  of  success  (and  ill-success  in 
life  wherever  and  whatever  the  pursuit,  is  often  traceable  to 
family  traits,  such  as  despondency,  impatience,  or  too  roman 
tic  a  disposition),  he  soon  quits  the  spot  first  purchased  and 
is  off  with  his  family  for  other  acres  seven  or  eight  hundred 
miles  away,  there  to  try  his  fortunes  anew,  with  the  odds 
more  against  him  at  each  change.  If  idle  or  dissipated  in 
habits  he  degenerates  into  a  demi-savage  ;  his  scanty  clearing 
ill  supports  the  wife  and  children  huddled  into  the  chinky 
hut,  and  they  must  sow  and  reap  for  themselves  or  perish,  while 
he  wanders  the  forest  for  days,  witli  no  company  but  his  hound, 
his  rifle,  and  the  fatal  flask.  Society  grows  hateful  and  bur 
densome  to  him,  and  his  earthly  curse  is  still  to  wander  and 
to  wander,  leaping  before  each  advancing  wave  of  population 
which  washes  inward  from  the  Atlantic  coast. 

The  American  backwoodsman  cared  little  for  those  lighter 


228  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

sports  which  English  tourists  took  such  pleasure  in.  He  used 
a  rifle  and  threw  a  single  ball  with  great  precision.  The  only 
bird  he  cared  to  pursue  was  the  wild  turkey.  Deer,  bears, 
and  beavers  were  game  he  esteemed.  But  when  parties  of 
our  Middle  region  formed  to  shoot  for  mere  frolic,  they  went 
after  the  gray  squirrel,  scalping  (as  they  termed  it)  these 
creatures  by  the  hundreds  for  the  sake  of  their  valuable  fur. 
There  was  no  meat  more  delicious  to  the  back-settler,  whether 
in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  or  Kentucky,  than  a  squirrel 
roasted  or  stewed. 

Against  sudden  changes  of  temperature  it  behooved  the 
European  emigrant  to  guard  carefully  until  he  had  become 
well  acclimated.  Along  the  seacoast  and  near  the  river 
marshes  he  ran  the  risk  of  intermittent  fever.  He  quaked 
with  terror  and  dismay  at  the  thunder  and  lightning  which 
accompanied  a  summer  shower  in  Pennsylvania  or  Maryland, 
as  though  of  a  truth  he  had  got  into  "  the  devil's  own  country." 

In  the  backwoodg,  as  elsewhere,  Americans  developed  great 
ingenuity  in  the  pursuit  of  gain.  The  bee- hunter,  for  instance, 
went  into  the  forest  with  a  blanket  for  the  night's  shelter,  a 
saw,  and  a  pocket-compass.  Reaching  a  favorable  spot  he 
would  burn  beeswax  to  attract  the  bees,  and  set  a  saucer  down - 
which  contained  a  little  honey  with  a  touch  of  vermilion. 
The  bees,  drawn  by  the  odor  of  the  burning  wax,  approached 
the  saucer,  partook  of  the  honey,  and  then  flew  away,  betray 
ing  their  identity  by  the  red  tincture.  The  hunter  would  now 
mark  their  straight  course  by  his  compass,  observing,  too,  how 
long  it  took  one  of  these  vermilion-coated  insects  to  go  and 
return.  Thus  guided  in  his  estimates,  he  soon  tracked  out  the 
tree  where  they  hived,  and,  after  sawing  it  down  with  as  little 
noise  as  possible,  proceeded  to  despoil  the  buzzing  tenants  of 
their  hoarded  sweetness.*  The  salt  springs  of  the  Genesee 
country,  too,  were  set  in  full  operation  while  the  land  was  be 
ing  cleared.  From  these  saline  wells  a  pure,  fresh-looking 
water  was  pumped  out,  and  boiled  in  great  kettles  holding 
forty  gallons  each.  The  tracts  adjoining,  which  the  pioneer 
was  preparing  for  cultivation,  supplied  the  fuel  for  this  im 
portant  process.f 

*  See  P.  Campbell's  Travels,  1793.  t  J-b- 


1793.  MARKETS   AND    RECREATION.  229 

Large  wagon?,  with  tops  of  white  canvas  or  linen,  brought 
produce  from  the  interior  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  great 
market  towns  of  our  Middle  States.  Those  of  the  Pennsyl 
vania  region  were  well-built,  and  drawn  by  four  or  more  fat 
horses ;  the  capacious  inside  bore  often  a  bevy  of  country 
beauties  under  the  charge  of  the  broad-brimmed  farmer  who 
held  the  reins.  Market  day  was  vanity  fair  with  its  gilded 
edge  always  in  sight.  The  markets  in  the  great  towns  had  an 
excellent  supply  of  meat,  game,  fish,  vegetables,  and  fruit,  and 
foreigners  had  noted  already  the  variety  and  profusion  of  an 
American  table.  Neither  governor  nor  chief  justice  was  too 
proud  to  turn  out  with  market-basket  in  hand  at  sunrise,  and 
pick  out  the  choice  joints  from  the  butcher's  cart  for  a  distin 
guished  table,  and  many  a  morning  salutation  would  be  ex 
changed  as  great  men  jostled  one  another  in  the  greasy  and 
good-natured  throng. 

Recreations  were  simple  in  this  unadorned  age.  For  the 
winter  season  the  young  people  enjoyed  nothing  so  much  as 
sleighing.  When  the  snow  lay  crisp  on  the  ground  the  merry 
jingle  of  bells  was  incessant,  and  the  whole  country  bestirred 
itself;  tavern-keepers  were  kept  up  all  night.  The  girls  had 
prepared  bags  of  hotsand,  which  their  gallants  would  place  in 
the  sleigh  at  their  dainty  feet.  If  the  party  was  large  and 
bent  upon  a  social  frolic,  a  fiddler  was  placed  on  the  front 
seat,  who  played  on  the  way;  and  then  alighting  at  some  inn 
the  company  sought  out  the  well-lighted  parlor,  and  formed  for 
a  reel  to  his  music  on  the  well-sanded  floor.  The  sleighing 
season  usually  was  short  in  the  Pennsylvania  latitude  ;  but  the 
thermometer  one  of  these  winters  went  down  to  twenty  degrees 
below  zero  in  Philadelphia,  and  sleds  brought  wood  across  the 
frozen  Delaware  from  the  New  Jersey  shore,  and  at  other  times 
ferry-boats  shod  with  runners  were  pushed  over  ice  and  then 
sailed  in  the  open  parts  of  the  river.*  Priest,an  English  travel 
ler,  who  was  bound  from  Baltimore  to  Wilmington,  records  that 
the  Susquehanua  River  having  suddenly  frozen,  the  ferry-boat 
$  topped  running  which  should  have  conveyed  him  across  with 
his  fellow-passengers,  and  that  upon  the  undertaking  of  the 
ferryman's  slave  to  drive  the  stage  over  for  two  dollars,  his 

*  See  B.  SutclifTs  Travels,  1803-1805. 


230  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

master  pocketing  the  money  ordered  the  negro  to  proceed,  who 
whipped  boldly  across,  the  ice  cracking  horribly  all  the  way.* 
Public  entertainments  within  doors  were  but  moderately 
patronized  as  yet,  even  at  the  largest  centres  of  the  United 
States.  There  were  concerts  of  harpsichord,  pianoforte,  and 
guitar;  Donegani,  with  his  slack  rope  and  tumbling  feats; 
exhibitions  "of  live  camels;  circuses;  and  wax-work  shows; 
wherein,  bright  and  stiff,  like  pins  in  a  paper,  stood  one  row 
of  life-sized  monarchs  and  patriots  in  their  ruffles  and  insignia, 
headed  usually  by  Washington,  staring  straight  at  another  row 
of  dolls  who  grinned  in  return,  likewise  of  life-size,  and  whom 
the  exhibitor  certified  to  be  famous  beauties  of  the  day.  Danc 
ing  assemblies  in  the  chief  towns  satisfied  the  craving  for  social 
enjoyment  and  distinction.  But  from  the  commencement  of 
our  Revolution  the  hand  of  the  law  had  lain  heavily  upon 
actors  and  theatrical  performances.  Nor  in  most  leading  States 
was  it  until  1789  or  later  that  the  sous  of  the  sock  had  begun 
to  be  treated  as  better  than  low  vagrants.  New  York  set  the 
example  of  liberality  towards  them,  and  the  itinerant  company 
of  actors  which  had  first  introduced  stage  performances  into 
the  American  Colonies  in  1752,  lost  no  opportunity,  on  re 
appearing  in  1785,  to  demonstrate  their  Whiggish  zeal  by  bring 
ing  out  the  next  year  in  New  York  city  the  first  American 
play  ever  performed,f  and  still  later  illuminating  their  theatre 
handsomely  on  the  first  night  of  the  Presidential  inauguration. 
In  Pennsylvania,  too,  the  Quaker  opposition  to  theatricals  was 
overborne  by  a  like  good  policy  in  1789,  and  so  rapidly  did 
play-acting  become  profitable  in  Philadelphia  that  a  fine  new 
theatre  was  erected  by  1793  on  Chestnut  Street,  capable  of 
seating  two  thousand  people,  and  probably  as  elegant  as  any  of 
that  day  in  London. J  Washington  often  went  to  the  play  in 

*  W.  Priest's  Travels,  179JJ-1797.  The  author  adds  that,  of  course, 
he  did  not  remain  inside  the  couch. 

f  The  Contrast,  by  Royal  Tyler,  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  Ver 
mont. 

J  See  Griswold's  Republican  Court.  So  desirous  was  the  manager  of 
this  new  theatre  in  Philadelphia  to  keep  on  the  popular  side,  that  he 
bore  the  displeasure  of  the  leading  lady  of  fashion,  Mrs.  Bingham,  rather 
than  gratify  her  unrepublican  request  for  a  permanent  box  and  key,  to 
be  kept  for  the  exclusive  use  of  herself  and  her  chosen  friends. 


1793.  AMERICAN    THEATRICALS.  231 

these  years  of  Philadelphia  life,  as  well  as  to  Rickett's  Circus, 
another  popular  place  of  entertainment  at  the  Capital. 

But  in  Boston  those  who  opposed  the  theatre  as  a  school  of 
immorality  maintained  the  legislative  ban  of  Revolutionary 
times  more  rigidly,  and  that  grand  old  Calvinist,  Samuel 
Adams,  spoke  on  the  anti-theatre  side  at  a  Faueuil  Hall 
town  meeting,  called  in  1791,  to  consider  whether  or  not  the 
Boston  Representatives  in  General  Court  should  be  instructed 
to  use  their  efforts  to  procure  a  repeal  of  the  prohibitory  act. 
Adams  was  heard  impatiently,  however,  and  favorable  instruc 
tions  were  voted.  But  this  demonstration  failed,  for  the  actor's 
cause  was  more  popular  in  Boston  than  among  the  rural  in 
habitants.  Presuming  upon  so  strong  a  local  sentiment  in 
their  favor,  the  actors, soon  after  the  legislature  had  adjourned, 
opened  an  exhibition-room  in  Board  Alley,  where  they  drew 
crowded  houses  to  attend  what  they  called  "  moral  lectures." 
Here  "  the  fatal  effects  of  vice,"  as  they  advertised,  would  be 
illustrated  by  a  specified  tragical  lecture,  as,  for  instance, 
"  Jane  Shore,"  which  was  to  be  followed  by  "  Tom  and 
Sally,"  or  such  like  "entertaining  lecture."  But  to  this 
barefaced  violation  of  a  statute  Governor  Hancock  called 
attention  when  the  new  legislature  convened,  and  the  sheriff 
soon  after  came  upon  the  stage  in  the  midst  of  a  perform 
ance,  arrested  the  actors,  and  broke  up  the  play.  The 
crowded  audience  showed  how  little  they  respected  the  pro 
hibitory  statute  by  hissing  the  officers  and  refusing  to  take 
their  money  back.  A  crowd  attended  the  examination,  which 
was  held  next  day  at  Faneuil  Hall,  and  resulted  in  discharging 
the  actors  because  of  a  technical  defect  in  the  warrant,  but 
the  lectures  had  to  stop;  and  yet  so  strong  and  determined 
was  the  sentiment  of  Boston  that  the  legislature  presently,  in 
1793,  repealed  the  obnoxious  act.  And  this  ended  theatrical 
proscription  in  America.* 

Jn  external  appearance,  as  well  as  in  social  manners,  our 
chief  centres  of  population  corresponded  closely,  at  this  time, 
with  the  large  provincial  boroughs  of  England.  New  York, 

*  See  Drake's  Landmarks  of  Boston ;  Boston  Centinel  4  Hildreth's 
United  States. 


232  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

in  particular,  impressed  Cooper  as  the  exact  counterpart  of 
Liverpool,  in  the  situation  of  its  docks,  the  arrangement  of 
its  streets,  and  the  general  plan  of  the  houses  and  public 
buildings,  inside  and  out.  One  could  purchase  similar  arti 
cles  of  comfort  and  luxury  here  by  paying  one-third  higher, 
but  for  lodging,  entertainment,  and  travelling  it  cost  about 
one-third  less  than  in  England.*  The  beauty  of  the  young 
metropolis  bathed  in  the  rays  of  a  rich  sunset  was  admired 
by  all  who  approached  it  by  water  from  Sandy  Hook  or  Eliz 
abeth  Point.  Next  to  Niagara,  too,  whose  thunders  have 
drowned  so  much  inadequate  rhetoric,  and,  perhaps,  Virginia's 
Natural  Bridge,  and  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  admirers  of 
the  picturesque  most  delighted  in  a  sail  up  the  Hudson  as  far 
as  quaint  old  Albany,  whose  roofs  and  steeples,  covered  with 
tin  plates,  had  a  Dutch  glitter.  Boston  was  esteemed  as  an 
enterprising  and  interesting  town,  full  of  historic  landmarks, 
and  likely  to  make  more.  With  its  narrow  and  crooked 
streets,  and  its  wooden  houses,  gable  end  foremost,  so  closely 
placed  together,  there  was  constant  danger  here  of  a  sweep 
ing  conflagration  ;  and  when,  at  midnight,  the  sojourner  at  the 
inn  threw  up  his  window,  aroused  by  the  alarm  of  fire,  and 
saw  citizens  running  after  the  tub  engines  of  the  town,  while 
all  the  church-bells  were  clanging,  and  each  considerate  house 
wife  put  a  lighted  caudle  into  her  front  window  to  help  illu 
minate  the  street,  it  was  not  strange  if,  forsaken  by  slumber, 
he  rushed  to  the  scene  of  action  and  joined  the  lines  of  solid 
Bostonians  who  stood  passing  water-buckets  up  and  down 
like  modest  friends  of  humanity,  while  the  more  skilful  fire 
men  performed  their  customary  acts  of  prowess.f 

Philadelphia,  which,  as  the  first  city  in  historic  renown,  the 
first  in  population,  and  the  temporary  national  abode,  wore 
the  triple  crown  of  the  United  States,  fulfilled  her  mission 
with  a  Quaker-like  simplicity  and  quiet  which  somewhat 
obscured  the  example  she  was  setting.  Philanthropic  and 
learned  societies  here  existed,  commerce  flourished,  colleges  and 
hospitals  stood  on  old  endowments,  and  yet  an  atmosphere  of 

*  See  T.  Cooper's  Information. 

f  See  W.  Priest's  Travels;  E.  Suteliff's  Travels.  There  was  a  dis 
astrous  fire  in  Boston,  July  30th,  1794. 


1793.  PHILADELPHIA    AS   THE   CAPITAL.  233 

serenity,  Dot  to  say  of  dulness,  enveloped  the  public  work  of 
the  place.     A   want  of  homogeneousness  in  the  population, 
and  religious  differences  dating  back  to  Colonial  days,  was  an 
obstacle  here,  as  in   the  rest  of  the  State,  to  united  enterprise 
and    the    development   of  a    distinctive   political    character. 
Philadelphians  had  no  such  typical  traits  or  typical  leaders 
as  Boston  or  Charleston  ;  there  were  sets  and  cliques  all  liv 
ing  apart,  and  the  social  striatures  here  yawned  the  wider, 
because,   as  a   municipality,   it   was  broken   into  fragments. 
The  city  had  few  pretentious  edifices  at  this  time,  and  those 
private  ones  ;  and  of  the  grandest  of  these  the  owner's  fortune 
was  melting  as  he  constructed  it- 
Philadelphia  was,  in  short,  like  its  dwellers,  a  city  of  plain, 
sober,   substantial   homes,  whose   wealthy  merchants,  out  of 
good    brick,    with    white     marble   facings    and    foundations, 
made  themselves  dwellings,   with   ample  dormers  and  door 
ways,   easy  staircases,   and   open  chimneys,  comfortable,  but 
severely   chaste.     On   warm    summer   evenings   their    living 
contents  would  pour  out,  like  a  Front  Street  merchant's  bales 
and  boxes,  upon  the  clean  steps,  porches,  and  sidewalks,  but 
wooden  shutters  at  most  other  times  excluded  the  public  gaze 
as  from  the   riches  of   a  safe-vault.     The  gregarious   desire 
was   kept  within   decorous  bounds,  and,  as  scarcely   a   me 
chanic    could    live    contented    here    without    being    a    free 
holder,  the  poor  man's  desire  was  often  gratified  by  the  pur 
chase  of  a  vacant  lot  in  some  new  street,  where  he  might  put 
up  a  small  building  fifty  feet  back  from  the  surveyor's  line, 
there  to  live  until  his  means  should  enable  him  to  join  a  good 
house  to  the  front  and  turn  his  first  habitation  into  a  kitch- 
enell.     The  streets  had  no  curbstones  as  yet,  but  pavements 
were  dotted  by  posts  to  mark  the  boundaries.     Pumps  sup 
plied  water  for  drinking,  and  rain-casks  what  was  needful   for 
washing  the  clothes,  though  a  Schuylkill  aqueduct  was  lately 
talked  of.     Spring  Garden  was   a   favorite   place   for  flying 
kites  ;  State  House  Square,  with  its  beautiful  elms,  the  fash 
ionable  promenade.  The  old  jail  and  whipping-post  exchanged 
knowing  glances  at  the  corner  of  Third   and   High   streets. 
Philadelphia's  system  of  streets,  running  at  right  angles,  made 
the  city  a- safe  one  to  find  one's  way  in.     Trees  were  set  out  at 
VOL.  i. — 20 


234  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

regular  intervals,  and  the  nightly  chorus  of  toads  and  bull 
frogs,  broken,  possibly,  by  the  plaintive  note  of  a  whip-poor- 
will,  reminded  every  Londoner  that  he  was  far  from  home. 
For  miles  from  the  city,  on  the  Pennsylvania  side,  there  was 
an  open  prospect,  since  the  king's  troops,  at  the  period  of  oc 
cupation,  had,  when  distressed  for  fuel,  cut  down  many  hun 
dred  acres  of  orchards;  but  the  opposite  shore  of  New  Jersey 
was  a  forest.* 

The  new  mint,  recently  authorized  by  Congress,  commenced 
operations  here  under  the  direction  of  David  Rittenhouse,  the 
astronomer,  a  worthy  successor  of  Franklin  in  experimental 
philosophy,  and,  like  Franklin,  identified  closely  with  the  in 
terests  of  Philadelphia.  The  need  of  a  national  coinage  had 
long  been  apparent,  but,  for  years  to  come,  the  common  reck 
oning  continued  by  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  and  that 
without  a  single  coin  to  express  these  values,  while  much 
counterfeit  English  money  was  in  circulation.  Scarcely  three 
States  reckoned  alike  the  number  of  shillings  to  the  dollar. 
Philadelphia  gained  permanently  the  mint  as  well  as  the 
national  bank  by  becoming  the  temporary  Capital. 

At  this  period  epidemic  disorders  were  prevalent  in 
northern  sea-coast  towns  to  an  extent  unknown  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  under  our  modern  system  of  sanitary  precau 
tions  and  the  advance  of  medical  science.  Small-pox  broke 
out  in  Boston  with  such  virulence  in  the  latter  part  of  1792 
that  a  town  meeting  was  called  to  devise  measures  for  check 
ing  the  contagion,  and  Governor  Hancock  thought  it  prudent 
to  convene  the  next  legislature  at  Concord. f  A  scourge  far 
more  terrible  and  less  skilfully  resisted  afflicted  Philadelphia 
a  year  later  ;  a  strange  and  fatal  disease,  proving  to  be  the 
yellow  fever,  which  was  probably  brought  over  in  early  sum 
mer  by  some  uninspected  vessel  from  the  West  Indies.  At  a 
lodging-house  on  Water  Street,  in  July,  the  first  victims  were 
attacked,  and  from  this  quarter  of  the  city  the  contagion 
spread  regularly  along,  checked  by  an  occasional  empty  block 

*  See  Westcott's  Philadelphia;  McKoy's  Recollections ;  Priest's 
Travels. 

f  See  Columbian  Centinel,  August-December,  1792. 


1793.  YELLOW   FEVER.  235 

of  houses,  until  in  the  latter  part  of  August  the  whole  popu 
lation  was  in  a  panic.  Mayor  Clarkson,  on  the  22d  of  August, 
ordered  the  streets  cleaned  and  filth  removed,  and  by  the  26th 
an  address  of  the  Philadelphia  physicians  was  published,  warn 
ing  the  citizens  against  the  danger  of  holding  intercourse  with 
infected  persons.  The  tolling  of  bells  at  funerals  was  stopped, 
and  all  were  advised  to  avoid  fatigue,  dress  warmly,  and  pre 
serve  habits  of  temperance.  But  medical  men  understood 
little  how  to  cope  with  this  terrible  disorder.  Stopping  the 
practice  of  kindling  bonfires,  which  some  had  hitherto  thought 
a  good  preventive  of  the  disease,  they  substituted  that  of  firing 
guns  for  clearing  the  air,  under  the  delusion  apparently 
that  the  smell  of  gunpowder  was  beneficial,  but  without  suf 
ficiently  reflecting  that  this  jarring  of  people's  nerves  pros 
trated  them  the  more  readily.  So,  too,  it  was  only  after  fatal 
experiments  with  salt  purges,  bark,  wine,  and  laudanum,  that 
Dr.  Hush  found,  as  he  declared,  in  calomel  and  jalap  a  happy 
remedy  ;  and  thereupon  so  instant  became  the  demand  for  these 
new  specifics,  that  many  fell  victims  to  doses  of  the  dangerous 
components  not  properly  apportioned.  Vinegar  and  camphor, 
and  pieces  of  tarred  rope  were  widely  used  and  recommended 
by  way  of  preventives. 

The  usual  course  of  the  disease  was  this :  Chilly  fits  first 
warned  one  of  his  danger,  next  a  hot  ukin  ;  he  felt  pains  all  over 
the  back, and  became  costive  ;  he  had  soreness  at  the  stomach, 
accompanied  by  violent  retchings  without  any  discharge.  If 
these  symptoms  slowly  abated  he  recovered,  but  if  they  suddenly 
ceased  it  was  a  sign  of  danger,  in  the  latter  event  the  whites 
of  the  eyes  would  become  saffron -colored,  blood  issued  from 
the  mouth  and  nose,  and  vomiting  ensued  of  a  dark  substance 
resembling  coffee-grounds.  The  victim's  skin  now  assumed  in 
spots  that  yellowish-purple  from  which  the  name  of  the  fever 
was  derived.  He  felt  sleepy,  and  would  lie  down  wherever  he 
happened  to  be;  soon  after  delirium  seized  him,  and  sometimes 
within  a  few  hours  after  the  first  attack,  though  more  commonly 
in  the  course  of  from  five  to  eight  days,  he  died.  Even  where 
he  recovered  from  the  black  vomit  spell  there  was  danger  that 
a  fatal  haemorrhage  would  set  in.  The  disease  was  most  suc- 
cessfuly  combated  by  breaking  up  the  first  costiveness.  One 


236  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

in  good  health  would  catch  the  infection  from  the  breath  or 
the  touch  of  a  tainted  person  ;  and  even  a  trunk  of  clothing 
was  known  to  communicate  the  disorder. 

About  August  25th  the  inhabitants  began  to  flee  as  from 
death  on  the  pale  horse.  Coaches,  carriages,  and  drays,  in 
long  processions,  bore  human  beings,  with  their  baggage  and 
household  goods,  to  a  prudent  distance  from  the  city  of  pesti 
lence.  Those  who  remained  in  Philadelphia  shut  themselves 
up  in  their  houses,  venturing  out  as  little  as  possible,  and 
friends  passed  each  other  with  only  a  cold  look  of  recognition  ; 
easy  conversation  at  the  street  corner  was  suspended,  for  each 
distrusted  his  neighbor.  While  the  epidemic  lasted  17,000 
left  town.  An  approaching  hearse  was  the  signal  for  closing 
every  door  and  window,  and  all  who  wore  the  habiliments  of 
mourning,  even  heart-broken  orphans  and  widows,  were 
shunned  as  though  branded  murderers.  The  suffering  was  in 
tensified  among  the  poor  and  bereaved  by  reason  of  the  utter 
stagnation  of  business,  whereby  thousands  were  thrown  out  of 
employment.  Meantime  the  undertaker,  the  busiest  of  men, 
with  his  energies  taxed  to  the  utmost,  did  most  of  the  doleful 
business  of  interment  by  night,  and,  contracting  to  furnish 
coffins  by  the  quantity  in  his  wholesale  procedure,  that  which 
he  designed  for  one  member  of  a  family  would  serve  not  uu- 
frequently  for  another,  while  the  intended  occupant  recovered. 
The  remains  of  respected  citizens,  in  this  period  of  gloom,  no 
matter  what  the  cause  of  death,  were  hurried  to  the  grave  on 
a  pair  of  shafts,  drawn  by  a  single  horse,  with  some  solitary 
negro  for  the  driver,  and  buried  without  funeral  rites,  not  a 
member  of  the  family  or  family  friend  being  present  to  drop  a 
last  tear  at  the  grave.  It  was  not  strange  if  amid  all  this  con 
fusion  mistakes  occurred,  or  that  a  sick  man  was  sometimes 
boxed  up  before  the  breath  had  left  his  body.  The  public 
offices  were  temporarily  removed  from  the  mourning  city. 
The  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  met  at  the  State  House 
in  the  midst  of  the  panic,  and  then  hastily  adjourned.  Officials, 
even  the  municipal  ones  whose  duty  it  was  to  provide  for 
averting  this  contagion,  slipped  away  under  various  pretexts, 
shifting  upon  those  who  remained  a  tremendous  burden,  with 
out  means  adequate  for  sustaining  it.  The  almshouse  having 


1793.  YELLOW   FEVER.  237 

been  closed  upon  infected  occupants,  a  vacant  circus  on  Mar 
ket  Street  was  taken  by  the  authorities,  where  victims  died  of 
sheer  exposure  to  the  damp  air,  and  one  corpse  actually  putre 
fied  before  a  servant, — and  she  a  female,  who  fortunately  suf 
fered  nothing  in  consequence, — could  be  found  hardy  enough 
to  remove  it;  the  neighbors  meantime  threatening  to  set  the 
building  on  fire  unless  the  hospital  quarters  were  removed 
speedily  to  a  more  distant  site. 

While  the  fear  of  approaching  death  laid  bare  the  selfish 
ness  and  meanness  of  the  many,  it  showed  that  there  were 
brave  citizens  who  dared  to  expose  their  own  lives  in  order  to 
assuage  the  general  suffering.  One  of  these  was  Mayor  Clark- 
son,  whose  conduct  adorns  with  cisatlantic  lustre  a  name  which 
philanthropy  must  ever  claim  for  her  own  ;  another,  Stephen 
Girard,  Philadelphia's  later  renowned  benefactor,  who,  with 
one  Peter  Helm,  assumed  in  September  the  direction  of  the 
new  Lazaretto  Hospital  at  Bush  Hill,  which,  filthily  kept  and 
poorly  served,  had  previously  acquired  the  repute  of  a  human 
slaughter-house.  Meetings  of  patriotic  citizens,  presided  over 
by  the  mayor,  provided  temporary  funds,  and  moneyed  men 
seconded  the  efforts  made  by  their  more  prominent  brethren 
for  organizing  resistance  to  the  dread  destroyer. 

Nature  proved  the  only  skilful  physician  for  her  own  dis 
temper  in  this  case.  With  the  first  frosts  of  early  November 
the  yellow  fever  ceased,  and  the  city  once  more  became  habited 
and  habitable.  During  the  season  of  the  epidemic,  from 
August  to  November  9th,  the  number  of  city  interments  was 
4044,  and  it  is  estimated  that  out  of  the  entire  population 
which  inhabited  Philadelphia  while  the  fever  prevailed,  more 
than  20  per  cent,  perished.  During  several  later  seasons  the 
disorder  afflicted  other  places,  including  New  Haven,  New 
York,  Baltimore,  Charleston,  and  even  places  as  far  north  as 
Newburyport  and  Boston,  whose  quarantine  and  sanitary  ar 
rangements  had  likewise  been  imperfect.  It  reappeared  at 
times  iu  Philadelphia,  and  more  especially  in  1797,  when  there 
was  a  second  terrible  scourge.  Later  improvements  in  drain 
age,  and  the  plentiful  introduction  of  pure  water,  together  with 
more  stringent  sanitary  regulations,  have  doubtless  had  much 
influence  in  keeping  yellow  fever,  during  the  present  century, 


238  HISTOHY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

out  of  the  more  northerly  latitudes  of  the  American  coast, 
•\vhere  certainly  this  disease  is  not  indigenous.* 

Municipal  wants,  in  fact,  as  our  leading  towns  were  at  this 
time  carried  on,  must  have  been,  as  the  reader  may  well  sur 
mise,  ill-devised  and  imperfectly  executed  The  Philadel 
phia  experience  hastened  the  introduction  of  the  Schuylkill 
water  into  that  city.  But  several  years  later  complaint  was 
made  in  the  newspapers  of  the  recklessness  with  which  diseases 
were  allowed  to  generate  in  each  important  metropolis ;  and 
when  in  1797  there  was  a  new  fever  panic  at  the  North,  in 
some  respects  greater  than  the  former,  there  was  indignant 
complaint  at  the  dulness  with  which  the  civic  authorities  had 
received  the  lessons  of  experience.  By  this  time  it  was  fairly 
agreed  by  medical  men  that,  whether  such  pestilential  disorders 
originated  or  not  in  warmer  climates,  and  were  first  communi 
cated  from  outside  through  imperfect  quarantine,  local  uu- 
cleauliness,  bad  drainage,  impure  water,  and  the  putrefaction 
of  noxious  substances  in  water-side  streets  did  much  towards 
generating  and  propagating  the  disease.  In  populous  New 
York,  "  tea-water,"  so-called,  was  carried.about  in  casks,  and 
sold  for  family  drinking  purposes  ;  but  this  was  warm,  and 
moreover  could  only  be  obtained  when  the  cartman  pursued 
his  journey.  Taxpayers  complained  that,  with  the  surface 
system  of  drainage,  there  remained  filth  in  the  scourings  of 
filthy  housekeepers,  whom  no  police  restrained  ;  that  gutters 
were  green  with  putrefaction,  and  streets  in  motion  with  refuse 
animal  and  vegetable  matter  in  the  hot  summer  weather,  and 
that  stray  hogs,  after  feeding  upon  what  was  thrown  out  to 
them,  would  pursue  their  purveyor  into  the  open  house.  To 
such  indignant  demonstrations  we  owe  the  first  systematic  at 
tempts  made  at  municipal  cleanliness  in  our  largest  American 
localities,  and  the  introduction,  commencing  apparently  with 
Boston,  of  an  underground  system  of  sewerage. 

*  Westcott's  History  of  Philadelphia.  Mathew  Carey,  an  eye-witness, 
whose  own  heroism  in  the  fatal  season  is  worthy  of  honorable  mention, 
has  described  the  Philadelphia  distemper  of  1793  very  fully.  Some  of 
the  terrible  scenes,  as  pictured  in  Arthur  Mervyn,  a  novel,  by  Charles 
Brockden  Brown,  who  had  like  personal  opportunities  as  a  resident  of 
the  city  at  the  time  of  the  yellow  fever,  read  like  an  Oriental  rather 
than  an  American  tale. 


1793.  .  MUNICIPAL   PAEKS.  239 

With  so  much  suburban  scenery  that  wras  readily  accessible, 
and  so  many  unoccupied  lots  in  the  heart  of  each  city,  while 
the  houses  of  the  wealthy  were  surrounded  by  neat  gardens 
and  shrubbery,  the  need  of  public  parks  was  not  seriously 
felt  at  this  time.  Those  lungs  of  a  city,  as  they  have  so  well 
been  termed,  were  not,  however,  wholly  absent.  Philadelphia 
had  her  favorite  public  grounds,  guarded  by  a  brick  wall. 
New  York  sauntered  about  the  Battery  on  summer  evenings, 
and  saw  the  moonlightdance  upon  the  bay.  But  by farthe  finest 
and  most  gorgeous  municipal  park  in  America  was  the  Boston 
Common,  and  Bostonians,  while  complaining  that  their  tax 
was  double  that  paid  anywhere  else,  felt  justly  proud  of  it.* 

A  few  words  may  here  be  added  concerning  the  southern 
portion  of  the  United  States,  as  it  appeared  at  this  period. 
Voluntary  immigration  to  the  States  which  had  .seemed 
partial  to  slavery  was  insignificant.  But  some  newcomers 
would  settle  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  and  there  was  con 
siderable  travel  as  far  south  as  Richmond,  foreigners  desiring 
to  visit  interesting  localities  and  study  the  institutions  of  a 
commonwealth  remarkable  in  her  great  men  and  not  wholly 
disinclined  to  freedom.  Already  did  the  remarkable  differ 
ence  between  slave  and  free  systems  of  labor  impress  strangers 
who  crossed  the  Pennsylvania  border,  going  southwards,  as  it 
did  a  few  years  later  the  multitudes  who  floated  down  the 
Ohio,  touching  alternately  at  the  opposite  banks.  In  both 
Virginia  and  Maryland  the  wastefulness  of  the  farming  meth 
ods,  and  the  wretched  shabbiness  of  the  large  planters'  homes 
under  slave  institutions,  struck  the  traveller  at  once.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  more  the  slaves  the  fewer  were  the  owners'  com 
forts  of  life  ;  for  their  laud  and  slaves,  it  was  said,  were  like 
du.st  and  ashes  for  wealth.  Ingenuity  and  economy  seemed 
incompatible.  Horses,  mounted  by  negro  boys,  went  round  in 
a  circle  treading  out  the  sheaves.  A  tobacco  hogshead  was 
drawn  to  the  warehouse  by  the  curious  expedient  of  putting 
pivots  in  each  end,  attaching  shafts,  and  then  setting  a  yoke 
of  oxen,  attended  by  two  slaves,  to  roll  it  along.  Wretched 
teams  were  regularly  visible  at  the  Alexandria  market,  con 
sisting,  perhaps,  of  an  ox  and  a  mule  harnessed  together. 

*  See  local  newspapers,  179.'>-1797. 


240  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Although  Mount  Vernon  was  one  of  the  most  prudently 
managed  plantations  in  all  Virginia,  Parkinson,  who  came 
from  England  intending  to  rent  a  portion  of  it,  not  only  con 
sidered  the  stock  and  soil  alike  of  an  inferior  sort,  but  declared 
bluntly  that,  saddled  with  the  support  of  negroes,  so  many  of 
whom  were  unfit  for  work,  he  would  not  accept  such  a  farm 
rent  free  and  undertake  to  make  it  profitable.  Hiring  an  estate 
instead,  only  three  miles  from  Baltimore,  which  he  turned  to 
dairy  purposes,  he  found  so  little  opportunity  for  procuring 
faithful  and  steady  free  laborers,  that  he  and  his  sons  had  to 
get  up  long  before  sunrise  and  milk  the  cows,  besides  perform 
ing  nearly  all  the  farm  drudgery  in  the  course  of  the  day.* 

Free  negroes  in  a  State  which  still  keeps  up  the  servile  in 
stitution,  and  makes  no  genuine  provision  for  their  employment, 
education,  or  social  advancement,  are  only  the  lucky  brothers 
of  a  degraded  clan,  and  hence  we  need  not  wonder  that,  as 
a  class,  those  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  were  by  general 
repute  vagabonds  and  pilferers,  who,  but  for  their  docility 
and  sluggishness  of  temperament,  might  have  grown  into  a 
very  dangerous  criminal  element  of  society.  As  things  went 
they  required  a  jail  discipline  quite  often.  Yet,  allowing  for 
their  untruthfulness,  their  stealing  propensities,  their  fondness 
for  drink  and  lechery,  it  was  found  profitable  to  make  huck 
sters  of  them,  for  they  pushed  their  wares  well,  and  brought 
home  a  handsome  sum  above  what  they  appropriated.  Park 
inson  thought  the  blacks  coming  together  in  Baltimore 
market  on  behalf  of  the  white  buyer  and  seller  commonly 
leagued  to  help  one  another  to  make  a  profit  at  the  expense 
of  their  respective  employers  or  masters.  Sutcliff  tells  of  a 
Baltimore  negro  who  became  invaluable  to  his  master  in 
selling  light  produce,  and  who,  having  been  allowed  some 
time  for  himself,  laid  by  money  with  which  he  asked  to  buy 
his  freedom,  and  says  that  though  he  offered  an  unusually 
large  sum,  his  master  refused,  to  his  great  distress,  to  sell  him 
his  freedom,  avowing  that  he  could  not  part  with  so  useful  a 
slave  on  any  terms.f  And  thus  might  a  negro's  virtues  fasten 
his  collar  the  closer. 


R.  Parkinson's  Tour.         f  See  E.  Suteliff's  Travels,  1S04-1SOG. 


1793.  THE   SOUTHERN   COUNTRY.  241 

From  an  economical  point  slavery  appeared  a  poor  invest 
ment,  not  only  because  so  many  infants  and  decrepit  folk  had 
to  be  maintained  in  idleness  by  the  owner,  but  by'reason,  too, 
of  the  improvident  habits  from  which  not  even  the  industrious 
and  able-bodied  were  exempt.  Negroes  were  perceived  to  be 
voracious  feeders,  heating  whatever  they  ate,  and  throwing  rich 
morsels  and  fat  to  dogs  and  other  brutes.  The  slave  would  often 
say,  "  Massa,  we  work  and  raise  all,  and  so  we  ought  to  con 
sume  all."  Females,  employed  about  the  cook-house,  let  their 
little  children  run  loose,  to  do  damage,  if  not  to  contaminate 
besides  the  young  whites  with  whom  they  played.  In  Dela 
ware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  slaves  were  not  cruelly  treated 
by  their  masters,  but  a  mutual  laxity  of  morals  was  the  painful 
result  of  an  intercourse  which  must  always  be  attended  with 
the  strongest  sexual  temptation.  It  was  not  strange  in  these 
States  at  this  period  to  behold  naked  children  of  either  sex, 
ten  or  twelve  years  old,  standing  in  the  market-place  with 
baskets  on  their  heads.  Handsome  mulatto  girls  waited  on 
their  master's  table  with  a  field  dress  of  loose  cotton  or  woollen 
cloth,  girt  round  the  waist  too  carelessly  to  conceal  other  than 
temptingly  those  charms  which  modesty  should  have  hidden  ; 
their  feet  and  lower  extremities  quite  bare.  In  Richmond,  a 
thriving  town,  sooty  with  pit-coal,  illicit  intercourse  between 
white  masters  and  their  slaves  was  indeed  becoming  so  com 
mon  at  the  close  of  the  century  as  to  scandalize  the  old  traders 
who  had  identified  themselves  with  the  place  in  an  era  of 
pure  morals,  and  SutclifF  tells  of  one  he  met  who  was  just 
abandoning  a  lucrative  business  and  moving  away  rather  than 
consent  to  remain  where  his  children  would  be  brought  up 
among  the  licentious  surroundings.* 

The  condition  of  slavery  was  probably  worse  rather  than 
better  in  the  extreme  Southern  States,  but  to  that  region 
travellers  as  yet  seldom  penetrated. 

From  the  time  of  Washington's  second  inauguration,  or, 
perhaps,  from  the  opening  of  the  present  calendar  year,  dates 
the  development  of  a  new  impulse  to  political  divisions  in 

*  II.  Sutcliff's  Travels ;  and  see  Parkinson's  Travels. 

VOL.  I.— 21 


242  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

America.  The  party  cleavage  is  essentially  as  before,  but, 
instead  of  Hamilton's  financial  policy,  the  predominant  issue 
now  becomes,  through  the  influence  of  gathering  events,  that 
predilection  already  noticed  as  between  the  two  great  con 
tending  powers  of  Europe,  Great  Britain  and  France,  which 
was  before  subordinated.  Those  countries,  grappling  as  in  a 
death-struggle,  sought  to  embroil  the  United  States,  each  on 
her  own  side,  by  exerting  a  direct  influence  upon  the  policy 
which  the  American  people  claimed  so  nearly  a  constitutional 
right  to  control.  Nor  can  it  be  said  with  truth  that  a  genuine 
neutrality,  with  reference  to  European  politics,  prevailed  in 
this  country  from  1793  until  after  the  war  of  1812,  a  war 
which  accomplished  the  final  divorcement  of  the  two  conti 
nents. 

The  recent  interchange  of  ministers  had  done  little  towards 
allaying  the  public  irritation  felt  against  Great  Britain  in 
this  country;  and,  while  Jefferson  and  Hammond  pursued  a 
fruitless  discussion  in  Philadelphia  over  reciprocal  infractions 
of  the  peace  treaty  of  1783,  Pinckney,  in  London,  found  it 
impossible  either  to  gain  the  commercial  concessions  hoped  for 
or  to  bring  about  an  understanding  that  the  English  custom 
would  cease  of  impressing  American  seamen,  a  custom  in 
utter  disregard  of  our  own  naturalization  laws,  which  licensed 
intolerable  liberties  with  men  not  British  born.* 

France,  on  the  other  hand,  was  straining  the  enthusiasm  of 
America  to  a  high  pitch,  and  our  people,  notwithstanding  the 
Danton  massacre  and  the  dethronement  of  King  Louis,  still 
regarded  the  new  French  republic  as  the  "  all  hail  hereafter." 
The  victory  of  Dumourier  over  the  Austrian  and  Prussian 
armies,  announced  about  New  Year's  Day,  was  celebrated  in 
January  of  this  year  much  like  the  triumph  of  a  French  and 
American  alliance.  In  Boston  an  ox,  roasted  whole,  was 

Jan  24      ^orne  'm  pageant,   elevated   twenty  feet  on  a  car 

drawn  by  sixteen  horses,  its  gilded  horns  displaying 

the  French  and  American  flags,  and  the  inscription  in  front 

being :  "  A  peace  offering  to  liberty  and  equality."     Four 

*  See  3  Jefferson's  Works,  428-441.  In  a  message  to  Congress,  Feb 
ruary  8th,  1792,  Washington  brought  the  impressment  grievance  to 
their  notice. 


1793.  CIVIC   FEASTS   AND   LIBERTY.  243 

carts  followed,  laden  with  loaves  of  bread  and  hogsheads  of 
punch.  After  dedicating  an  open  space  near  the  docks  as 
"  Liberty  Square,"  the  procession,  with  its  escort,  continued 
on  the  route  to  State  Street,  where  among  large  multitudes 
the  viands  were  distributed,  not  without  some  scrambling  and 
confusion.  The  remnants  of  the  feast  were  sent  to  the  jail 
and  alrnshouse,  and  with  the  proceeds  of  a  voluntary  sub 
scription  Boston's  imprisoned  debtors  were  set  free.  For  a 
more  distinguished  company  a  choicer  banquet  was  provided 
at  Faneuil  Hall,  at  which  the  lieutenant-governor,  Samuel 
Adams,  presided.  Two  balloons,  adorned  with  patriotic  de 
vices,  mounted  the  sky  from  the  market-square.  The  public 
school  children,  drawn  up  in  two  ranks  on  State  Street,  re 
ceived  each  a  cake  stamped  (i  Liberty  and  Equality,"  in  token 
of  the  joyful  commemoration.* 

Civic  feasts  of  a  similar  character  were  prepared  in  other 
parts  of  the  country.  At  a  public  dinner  given  in 
Philadelphia,  where  Governor  Miffliu  and  Teruant, 
the  French  minister,  bore  leading  parts,  a  pike  was  fixed  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  which  bore  a  liberty  cap  and  the  Amer 
ican  and  French  flags  intertwined,  the  whole  surmounted  by 
a  dove  and  olive  branch.f  "  C?a  ira  "  and  "  Yankee  Doodle  " 
were  the  favorite  airs  for  bands  to  play  in  succession  at  every 
popular  gathering.  There  was  a  sudden  rage  for  French 
fashions;  the  "Brutus  crop"  began  to  supersede  the  courtly 
old  queue  and  tie-wig;  it  was  no  longer  "  Hon."  and  "  Mr.," 
but  "  Citizen"  this  and  that. 

While  American  democracy  was  working  into  these  strange 
rapids,  the  British  sympathizers,  men  who  had  ridiculed  the 
French  republic  as  all  legs  and  no  head,  and  snapped  their 
fingers  at  the  discomfiture  of  Tom  Paine,  who,  on  a  recent 
excursion  to  London,  had  first  been  laid  in  a  sponging-house 
and  then  forced  to  retreat  across  the  Channel  under  threats 
of  a  libellous  prosecution,  now  became  aroused  to  a  sense  of 
impending  danger.  The  sober  and  reflecting  part  of  our 
community,  too,  were  horrified  at  the  news  which  came  a  few 
weeks  later,  with  sickening  details,  of  the  execution  of  Louis, 

*  Sullivan's  Familiar  Letters ;  Boston  Centinel. 
f  Westcott's  Philadelphia. 


244  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

a  monarch  weak  but  by  no  means  unamiable.  Indeed,  the 
fickleness  of  the  French  people,  who  so  readily  deserted  one 
set  of  leaders  for  another,  and  were  now  displacing  Lafayette 
to  make  room  for  such  wretches  as  Robespierre  and  Marat; 
their  cruelty  and  intolerance,  too,  in  proscribing  refugees, 
shedding  the  blood  of  so  many  innocent  victims,  and  wreaking 
a  barbarous  vengeance  upon  senseless  remains ;  their  impiety, 
of  which  a  late  speech  in  the  Convention  by  one  Citizen  Du- 
pont,  invoking  nature  and  reason  as  his  only  gods,  afforded  a 
shocking  instance, — all  this  set  our  citizens  to  thinking  whether 
French  liberty  might  not  be  after  all  a  painted  strumpet  in 
stead  of  the  twin-sister  of  her  for  whom  their  own  swords  had 
been  drawn.  But  while  America  thus  mused  came  the  start 
ling  intelligence  that  France  had  declared  war  upon  Great 
Britain ;  and,  moved  by  the  audacity  of  the  French  challenge  as 
well  as  their  own  vindictiveness  against  George  III,  the  more 
impulsive  of  our  community,  casting  discretion  aside,  gave 
themselves  up  to  a  delirium  of  joy,  which  did  not  easily  abate. 
The  war  news,  for  which,  though  expecting  rather  that 
Great  Britain  would  take  the  initiative,  our  administration 
was  not  unprepared,*  reached  America  shortly  after  Wash 
ington's  second  inauguration  and  while  he  was  upon 
a  visit  to  Mount  Vernon.  Repairing  at  once  to 
Philadelphia  he  submitted  to  his  cabinet  advisers  a  series  of 
questions  for  their  consideration,  relative  to  the 

April  17-18.    ^  ..  '          ,  ,„ 

course  suitable  to  pursue.  Jenerson  (who,  to  Wash 
ington's  gratification,  had  concluded  to  defer  his  resignation 
a  few  months  longer)  inclined  to  the  plan  of  summoning  Con 
gress  at  once  in  extra  session,  but  this  idea  was  overruled.  A 
new  French  minister  was  on  his  way  to  Philadelphia.  By  unan 
imous  consent  it  was  determined  (1)  that  a  proclamation  of 
neutrality  should  issue,  and  (2)  that  a  minister  from  the. 
French  republic  should  be  received.  This  proclamation  of 
neutrality,  which  Jay  drafted,  omitted,  however,  the  word 
"  neutrality,"  and  though  enforced  afterwards  by  the  President 
with  becoming  fairness,  appears  to  have  intentionally  left  the 

*  See  cipher  and  other  instructions  sent  to  our  diplomatic  agents  in 
March.     3  Jefferson's  Works. 


1793.  PROCLAMATION   OF   NEUTRALITY.  245 

precise  purpose  of  our  government  so  far  uncertain  that  powers 
at  war  might  feel  the  need  of  yielding  us  favor  in  return  for 
the  broadest  neutral  privileges.*  Jefferson  would  have  fa 
vored  France,")"  while  Hamilton  leaned  as  strongly  to  the  side 
of  Great  Britain. 

But  the  merchants  of  British  proclivities,  who  had  looked 
to  Hamilton  through  the  gathering  storm  to  keep  our  priva 
teers  under  a  tight  rein,  found  themselves  greatly  perplexed 
at  a  situation  which  revealed  France  already  in  treaty  alli 
ance  with  America  while  England  had  none.  More  than 
this,  our  treaties  with  France  committed  us  expressly  in  terms 
to  a  perpetual  guarantee  of  French  possessions  in  America, 
and  further  promised  to  French  privateers  and  prizes  a  shelter 
in  American  ports,  which  it  as  explicitly  refused  to  the  ene 
mies  of  France.  These  treaties  of  1778,  which  served  for 
our  revolutionary  relations,  bound  France  and  America  to  an 
alliance  in  design  inconsistent  with  the  strict  theory  of  neu 
trality,  giving  France  a  present  right  to  expect  some  return 
for  those  valuable  benefits  she  had  formerly  rendered  us. 
And  yet  the  thought  of  involving  the  United  States  forever  in 
European  turmoils,  simply  for  gratitude's  sake,  appeared  in 
tolerable  to  a  nation  like  ours,  so  plainly  was  it  for  America's 
interest  to  pursue  a  conduct  friendly  and  impartial  as  to  all 
foreign  belligerents  and  keep  out  of  their  ambitious  wars. 

These  treaties  had  weak  spots  which  Hamilton  was  prompt 
in  riddling.  They  were  made  with  the  King  of  France  and 
his  successors,  and  hence  might  not  apply  to  the  existing  gov 
ernment  ;  even,  if  in  force,  the  guarantee  might  not  apply  to 
an  offensive  but  only  to  a  defensive  war;  and,  lastly,  even 
though  we  felt  bound  to  exclude  English  privateers,  under  the 
letter  of  the  compact,  English  ships  of  war  were  not,  as  of 
course,  excluded.  But  upon  such  equivocal  points  the  Presi 
dent  felt  reluctant  to  stand  committed,  and  tacitly,  in  effect, 
the  existence  of  the  treaties  at  least  was  conceded. J 


*  See  1  Jay's  Works,  298 ;  Jefferson's  Works,  June  23d,  1793. 

f  Jefferson  to  Madison,  May,  1793.  Madison,  too,  was  "mortified" 
with  the  President's  .proclamation.  2  Madison's  Writings,  May,  1793. 

I  See  5  Hamilton's  Kepublic;  Writings  of  Washington,  Tljirriilton, 
and  Jefferson,  1793. 


246  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

The  President's  proclamation,  as  issued,  declared  that  the 
disposition  of  the  United  States  was  to  pursue  a 
line  of  conduct  friendly  and  impartial  to  both  bel 
ligerents.     Our  citizens  were  exhorted  to  avoid  all  acts  which 
might  contravene  that  disposition,  and  those  who  unlawfully 
aided  hostilities  or  carried  contraband  articles  were  warned 
not  only  that  the  government  would  not  shield  them  from 
punishment,  but  that,  as  offenders,  they  were  liable  to  prose 
cution  besides  in  the  proper  courts  of  the  United  States.* 

The  new  French  minister,  whose  reception  the  President 
had  determined  upon  without  that  embarrassing  reservation 
concerning  the  binding  force  of  treaties  which  Hamilton  and 
Knox  had  advised,  was  Edmond  Charles  Genet,  whom  the 
Girondists  sent  over  to  supersede  Ternant,  the  latter  proving 
a  serviceable  ambassador,  but  not  wrought  up  to  that  madness 
pitch  which  gloried  in  the  king's  execution.  "  Citizen  Genet," 
as  it  became  the  fashion  to  style  him,  was  a  ruddy,  good- 
looking,  vivacious  Frenchman,  not  without  brilliant  parts  and 
a  creditable  record  as  a  diplomatist,  but,  like  too  many  of  his 
nation  at  this  era,  given  to  effusive  and  illogical  utterances, 
a  zealot  in  politics,  and  having  that  bustling,  excitable,  over- 
action  in  affairs  which,  leaving  out  of  view  lawful  limitations 
and  the  rights  of  others,  leads  up  to  final  rupture  and  dis 
comfiture.  Methods  of  influence  which  Latin  nations  might 
safely  employ  upon  one  another,  are  found  ill-suited  to  our 
far  less  impulsive  Saxon,  whose  heart  not  readily  makes  way 
with  the  head ;  a  fact  which  Genet  learned  in  the  course 
of  a  brief  half-year's  experience  as  minister  of  the  French 
republic,  the  white-heat  to  which  he  worked  the  American 
people  on  his  first  appearance  as  rapidly  passing  off. 

Genet  landed  at  Charleston,  April  8th,  in  the  French  frig 
ate  "  L'Embuscade,"  more  after  the  fashion  of  some  liberator 
than  a  diplomatist  whose  credentials  had  not  yet  been  pre 
sented  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  concerning  whose  rec 
ognition  a  grave  cabinet  consultation  was  needful.  Bringing 
with  him  tidings  of  the  war  declared  with  Great  Britain,  he 
was  welcomed  at  this  Southern  port  with  great  enthusiasm. 

*  10  Washington's  Writings. 


1793.  THE   GENET   MISSION.  247 

lu  pursuance  of  secret  instructions  from  his  government  he 
adopted  at  once  a  line  of  conduct,  such  as  not  only  presumed 
upon  the  force  of  existing  treaty  stipulations  in  their  most 
liberal  sense,  but  undertook  further  to  draw  the  United  States 
into  an  entangling  alliance  with  France  which  must  have 
rendered  the  war  against  Great  Britain  their  common  cause. 
Money,  men,  and  privateers  from  America  he  especially 
reckoned  upon.  Bringing  with  him  blank  army  and  navy 
commissions,  and  three  hundred  letters  of  marque,  he  caused 
two  privateers  to  be  fitted  out  at  once  in  Charleston,  which, 
under  the  French  flag  and  manned  with  American  seamen, 
cruised  for  British  merchantmen  homeward  bound,  and  a 
number  of  captures  were  accordingly  made  in  the  Southern 
waters.  The  frigate  "  L'Embuscade,"  which  Genet  sent  up 
the  coast  to  Philadelphia,  likewise  took  prizes,  one  of  these, 
the  "  Grange,"  being  unlawfully  captured  within  the  capes  of 
Delaware  Bay. 

The  French  arrival  at  our  seat  of  government  was  arranged 
for  dramatic  effect,  and  as   though  to  arouse  the  American 
people,  if  need  be,  apart  from  those  in  authority.     "  L'Embus 
cade  "sailed  slowly  up  the  river  accompanied  by  her 
prizes,  and  was  saluted  when  she  came  in  sight  of 
Philadelphia  by  a  field-piece  on  Market  Street  wharf.     Her 
figure-head  was  crowned  with  the  liberty  cap.     On  the  round- 
tops  were  inscriptions  like  these:  "Enemies  of  equality,  relin 
quish  your  principles  or  tremble;"  "Freemen,  we  are  your 
brothers  and  friends ; "  "  We  are  armed  to  defend  the  rights 
of  man."     The  British  colors  were  reversed,  with  the  French 
llag  flying  above  them.     Thousands  of  Philadelphiaus  gazed 
upon   this   strange   scene   with  delight,  and  when 
Genet  arrived  by  land  a  fortnight  later,  having  re 
ceived  constant  ovations  by  the  way,  the  whole  city  seemed 
given   over  for  the  hour  to  frenzy.     A  long  procession   con 
ducted  the  ambassador  of  the  French  Republic  from  Gray's 
Ferry,  and  a  fervent  address  of  welcome  was  presented  to 
him. 

At  a  civic  feast,  given  in  honor  of  the  French  minister  a  few 
days  later,  toasts  went  round  which  denounced  aristocrats  and 
kings,  and  hailed  the  auspicious  fraternity  of  hearts  between 


248  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

France  aud  America.  Genet  sang  the  Marseillaise,  rapturously 
applauded  ;  and  when  the  red  cap  of  liberty, first  placed  on  his 
own  head,  was  then  sent  travelling  round  the  table  for  each 
to  don  and  pass  it  to  his  neighbor,  the  audience  became  almost 
frantic  with  joy.  The  Fourth  of  July  seemed  more  a  French 
than  an  American  celebration.  Governor  Miffliu  and  Genet 
honored  a  still  later  banquet,  which  commemorated  the  de 
struction  of  the  Bastile ;  and  here,  it  is  narrated,  the  head 
of  a  pig  severed  from  the  body  was  handed  round,  into  which 
each  guest  plunged  his  knife,  as  though  to  mangle  the  remains 
of  the  late  king,  uttering  some  appropriate  malediction. 

Such  counter-demonstrations  as  were  arranged  in  the  British 
interest  seemed  feeble  enough  in  comparison ;  but  a  public 
dinner  was  given  on  the  birthday  of  George  III  at  Phila 
delphia,  where  those  who  wore  the  cap  of  liberty  were  grimly 
admonished  that  there  was  another  cap  for  licentiousness.* 
British  and  French  tars  assailed  one  another  in  the  streets, 
the  crowd  usually  taking  part  with  the  latter. f  A  large  body 
of  Philadelphia  merchants  had  presented  Washington  with  a 
petition  for  neutrality;  yet  even  in  the  city  where  the  Federal 
government  held  its  seat  the  administration  found  the  popu 
lar  stream  ebbing  away  from  them.  The  President  and  his 
proclamation  were  becoming  obnoxious ;  the  more  so  that 
Washington — reticent  as  to  the  distrust  of  French  liberty  he 
must  have  felt  ever  since  the  displacement  of  Lafayette,  whose 
exile  and  imprisonment  he  sincerely- mourned — pursued  in 
flexibly  and  in  silence  the  neutral  course  which  had  been 
resolved  upon.  Men  and  women  put  on  the  French  tri-colored 
cockade.  In  the  fierce  tirade  against  monarchy  an  old  medal 
lion  of  George  II  on  Christ  Church  was  made  the  subject  of 
so  many  unfavorable  comments  that  the  vestry  prudently  re 
moved  it.  The  Advertiser,  published  by  Bache,  a  grandson 
of  Franklin,  and  Freneau's  Gazette  assailed  the  administra 
tion  and  the  neutral  proclamation  bitterly.  Ten  thousand 
people  in  the  streets  of  Philadelphia  threatened  day  after  day, 
it  is  said,  to  drag  Washington  out  of  his  house  and  make  him 

*  Griswold's  Hep.  Court;  \Vestcott' s  Philadelphia;  current  news 
papers. 

f  Westcott's  Philadelphia. 


1793.  THE   GENET   MISSION.  249 

resign  or  else  declare  for  France;  and  but' for  the  malignant 
fever  which  prostrated  some  of  the  ringleaders  there  might 
have  been  bloodshed  at  the  capital.*  Provoked  by  a  pas 
quinade  called  The  Funeral  of  Washington,  which  represented 
the  President  as  placed  upon  a  guillotine  in  parody  of  Louis, 
Washington  at  one  of  the  cabinet  meetings  broke  into  a  trans 
port  of  indignant  grief  at  the  personal  abuse  heaped  upon 
him.  'Yet  he  would  not  swerve  a  hair's  breadth. f 

The  manner  of  his  official  reception  as  the  accredited  minis 
ter  of  France  pleased  Genet  as  little  as  the  proclamation. 
Perceiving  in  the  vestibule  of  the  presidential  mansion  a  bust 
of  Louis  XVI,  he  took  no  pains  to  conceal  the  anger  he  felt 
at  a  simple  mischance.  Washington's  speech  of  reception 
was  courteous,  but  by  no  means  fervid,  and,  as  to  war  or  the 
status  of  the  French  Republic,  non-committal.  Fully  recog 
nized,  however,  and  his  credentials  accepted,  Genet  proceeded 
somewhat  precipitately  to  open  his  diplomatic  budget;  com 
municating  to  our  government  a  recent  decree  of  the  National 
Convention  which  threw  open  all  the  ports  of  France  and  her 
colonies  to  American  trade,  and  proposing  a  new  treaty  of 
commerce  on  the  basis  of  "a  true  family  compact."  May  22- 
The  French  minister  applied,  through  the  Secretary  Juneii. 
of  State,  for  an  immediate  advance  of  the  instalment  of  debt 
owing  his  country,  which  amounted  to  $2,300,000;  offering,  by 
way  of  inducement,  to  purchase  with  these  means  French  pro 
visions  and  naval  supplies  in  the  United  States.  But  the  idea  of 
lashing  tho  republics  together  was  not  favored  ;  and  parrying 
all  suggestions  of  a  new  commercial  arrangement  which  tended 
in  that  direction,  the  Executive  declined  the  proposal  for  pay 
ing  off  the  French  debt  by  anticipation,  as  something  too  incon 
venient,  and  which  under  the  circumstances  might,  moreover, 
be  thought  by  England  a  breach  of  neutrality.  Genet,  much 
annoyed  at  this  response,  next  proposed  making  the  debt  im 
mediately  available  to  France  by  an  assignment  of  the  certifi 
cates  in  payment  for  requisite  supplies;  but  to  this  course 
our  government  likewise  demurred. 


*  See  Westcott's  Philadelphia;  John  Adams's  Works,  June  30th,  1813. 
f  Jefferson's  Anas. 


250  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

The  British  minister  meanwhile  had  lost  no  time  in  pre 
ferring  complaints  of  the  privateer  outfit  and  Genet's  conduct 
on  landing  at  Charleston.  Indeed,  the  "  Grange"  capture  ap 
peared  clearly  in  violation  of  neutral  obligations,  and  the  cabi 
net  agreed  that  upon  the  arrival  of  Genet  restoration  should 
be  requested.  To  this  decision  Genet  submitted,  but  as  to  the 
other  privateers  he  warmly  insisted  that  they  were  owned  by 
French  houses  at  Charleston,  and  commanded  by  persons  who 
had  a  right,  whether  Americans  or  Frenchmen,  to  accept  com 
missions  from  the  French  Republic.  He  claimed,  too,  that 
the  exclusive  favor  accorded  to  French  prizes  and  privateers, 
under  the  treaties  of  1778,  implied  a  right  likewise  in  favor  of 
his  government  to  fit  out  privateers.  But  Hammond  took 
the  ground  that  the  Charleston  privateers,  armed  with  Ameri 
can  means  entirely,  and  partly  manned  by  Americans,  were 
American  and  not  French  privateers.  Jefferson  and  Randolph 
would  have  left  the  lawfulness  of  these  commissions  to  the 
courts,  but  Hamilton  and  Knox  advised  an  executive  inter 
pretation,  or,  in  other  words,  prompt  restitution. 

Leaving  the  latter  point  open  for  a  time,  Washington  took 
a  course  which  was  designed  to  prevent  the  further  efforts  of 
the  French  minister  to  involve  this  country  in  war.  Genet 
was  distinctly  warned  that  the  granting  of  military 
commissions  must  henceforth  cease,  and  the  sover 
eignty  of  a  neutral  jurisdiction  be  respected.  Besides  giving 
suitable  notice  of  his  intentions  to  both  the  belligerent  na 
tions,  the  President  sent  out  orders  to  the  seaports  that  all 
vessels  here  fitted  out  as  privateers  should  be  seized  and  the 
sale  of  their  prizes  prevented.  The  governors  of  the  States 
were  called  upon  to  co-operate  in  carrying  out  the  principle's 
of  the  President's  proclamation.  And,  by  way  of  example,  x 
Heufield  and  Siugleterry,  two  Americans  who  had  enlisted 
on  one  of  the  Charleston  privateers,  were  prosecuted.  A  new 
privateer,  fitted  out  in  New  York,  in  defiance  of  the  Presi 
dent's  instructions,  was  seized  just  before  she  was  ready  to  go 
to  sea. 

The  refusal  of  the  American  government  to  co-operate  with 
France,  where  he  had  expected  reckless  zeal  in  her  behalf, 
quite  unhinged  Genet,  whose  violence  grew  with  each  new 


1793.  THE   GENET   MISSION.  251 

ovation.  Nor  content  with  seeking  secretly  to  evade  the 
President's  instructions,  but  proceeding  under  the  mistaken 
apprehension,  as  it  appears,  that  the  American  Congress  had 
some  such  direct  control  over  a  reluctant  Executive  as  the 
National  Convention  of  France,  and  would  be  chosen  in  the 
present  exigency,  he  undertook  to  bring  such  a  popular  pres 
sure  to  bear  as  would  force  the  President  to  abandon  the  proc 
lamation  and  yield  to  his  wishes.  Accordingly  he  spurred  up 
the  opposition  press  in  its  attacks,  particularly  upon  Hamil 
ton,  and  made  the  most  of  the  hour's  infatuation.  In  lofty 
tone,  but  in  vain,  he  demanded,  through  Jefferson,  the  release 
of  Henfield  and  Siugleterry.  "  The  crime  laid  to  their  charge," 
he  said,  "  the  crime  which  my  mind  cannot  conceive,  and 
which  my  pen  almost  refuses  to  state,  is  the  serving  of  France 
and  the  defending,  with  her  children,  the  common  and  glori 
ous  cause  of  liberty."  To  those  about  him  he  protested,  in 
unguarded  language,  that  the  policy  pursued  by  t}ie  American 
administration  was  a  cowardly  abandonment  of  friends  in 
danger. 

The  affair  of  "  The  Little  Sarah,"  a  British  merchant  ves 
sel  which  had  been  captured  as  a  prize  and  brought  into  the 
port  of  Philadelphia,  led  closely  to  the  climax  with  Genet. 
While  Washington  was  absent  in  July,  having  been  suddenly 
called  to  Mount  Vernon  on  private  business,  the  lynx-eyed 
Hamilton  found  out  that  Genet  was  stealthily  procuring  a 
refit  of  this  vessel  to  cruise  as  a  French  privateer  under  the 
new  name  of  "  The  Little  Democrat."  A  cabinet  meeting 
was  held  ;  and,  as  it  seemed  probable  that  the  vessel 
would  sail  the  next  day,  immediate  notice  was  sent 
to  Governor  Mifflin,  whose  Secretary  of  State,  Dallas,  ap 
peared  before  Genet  at  midnight,  and  informed  him  that  un 
less  he  detained  the  vessel's  departure  until  the  President 
should  return  it  would  be  forcibly  seized.  Genet  flew  into  a 
passion,  and,  commenting  violently  upon  what  he  styled  the 
ungenerous  course  of  President  Washington,  declined  to  make 
any  positive  promise  of  detention.  Upon  this  report  Mifilin 
ordered  out  a  militia  detachment  to  take  possession  of  the 
vessel.  But  Jefferson,  who  was  desirous  of  keeping 
our  French  intercourse  in  a  smooth  channel,  held 


252  HISTOEY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

an  interview  with  the  enraged  di  pi  ornate  the  next  day,  which 
terminated,  after  a  similar  torrent  of  angry  complaints,  in  an 
assurance  that  the  vessel  would  not  be  ready  to  put  to  sea  for 
some  time,  but  was  only  to  drop  down  the  river  for  conve 
nience  of  loading.  Relying  upon  this  statement,  and  yielding 
to  the  minister's  earnest  remonstrances  against  provoking 
violence  by  putting  armed  men  on  board,  Jefferson  had  the 
militia  dismissed.  Hamilton  and  Knox,  however,  wished  a 
battery  erected  below  to  fire  on  the  privateer  and  sink  her  if 
she  should  attempt  to  pass.  The  President  did  not  arrive 
until  the  llth,  when  the  papers  of  the  case  were  at  once  put 
into  his  hands,  together  with  a  statement  of  the  rash  words 
Genet  had  used  respecting  him,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
declared  he  would  appeal  from  the  President  to  the  people. 
"  Is  the  minister  of  the  French  Republic,"  Washington  wrote 
indignantly  to  Jefferson,  who  was  now  sick  in  the  country, 
"  to  set  the  acts  of  this  government  at  defiance  with  impu 
nity  ?  And  then  threaten  the  Executive  with  an  appeal  to 
the  people!  What  must  the  world  think  of  such  conduct, 
and  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  in  submitting  to 
it?"  A  cabinet  meeting,  which  Jefferson  could  not  attend, 
was  held  the  next  day,  at  which  it  was  resolved 
that  all  privateers  which  any  of  the  belligerent 
powers  had  equipped  within  the  United  States, — for  English 
privateers  were  likewise  being  fitted  out  in  this  country, — 
should  be  detained  in  port,  while  the  pending  law  questions 
were  submitted  to  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  But 
"The  Little  Democrat"  had  already  fallen  down  to  Chester, 
and,  disregarding  the  President's  action  and  his  own  promise, 
Genet  let  her  go  to  sea.* 

Washington  had  a  new  humiliation  to  bear  in  the  failure 
of  the  criminal  prosecution  against  Heufield,  who,  in  spite 
of  the  strongest  evidence,  was  acquitted  by  the  jury.  The 
popular  sympathy  on  his  behalf  was  turned  to  the  reproach 
ol  an  administration,  charged  in  the  press  with  having  joined 
the  league  of  kings  against  liberty.  A  dinner  party  was 
given  by  Genet  in  honor  of  Heufield's  acquittal.  The  Su- 

*  10  Washington's  Writings ;  5  Hamilton's  Republic ;  4  Hildreth. 


1793.  THE   GENET   MISSION.  253 

preme  Court  justices,  too,  declined  to  furnish  an  opinion  upon 
the  delicate  questions  propounded,  inasmuch  as  no  test  case 
was  before  them.  The  judge  of  the  Pennsylvania  district 
also  disclaimed  prize  jurisdiction  on  the  ground  that  this  was 
rather  for  the  captor  nation  to  exercise. 

It  was  presently  determined  by  the  administration  to  pro 
cure  Genet's  recall.  In  this  decision  all  of  Wash 
ington's  cabinet  concurred  ;  Hamilton,  however,  ad 
vising  a  summary  dismissal,  such  as  might  have  provoked  the 
resentment  of  France,  while  Jefferson  favored  a  more  cautious 
course  than  to  the  President  himself  appeared  desirable.  The 
delicate  correspondence  which  ensued  with  Morris,  our  min 
ister  at  Paris,  and  Genet  himself,  was  conducted  by  Jefferson 
with  becoming  spirit  and  dignity.  Meanwhile  rules  were 
adopted,  which  the  cabinet  unanimously  signed,  concerning 
the  equipment  of  vessels  ;  collectors  of  customs  were  directed 
to  keep  strict  watch  and  communicate  suspicious  proceedings 
to  the  district  attorney  and  governor  of  the  State  ;  and  it  was 
determined  that  hereafter  the  administration  would  use  all 
the  means  in  its  power  to  maintain  a  strict  neutrality.  Of 
this  determination  the  British  minister  was  informed 
as  completing  the  full  measure  of  international  ob 
ligation  on  our  part  for  the  .future,  while,  as  to  prizes  cap 
tured  by  French  privateers  which  had  already  been  fitted  out 
in  the  ports  of  the  United  States,  contrary  to  the  notice  given 
in  June,  Genet  was  ordered  to  make  restitution,  since  other 
wise  this  government  would  compensate  the  losses  and  look  to 
his  government  for  indemnity. 

Genet,  when  notified  of  these  proceedings,  was  visiting  New 
York,  where,  from  the  Tontine  Coffee-House,  the  French  flag 
was  gayly  flying,  surmounted  by  a  liberty  cap  of  crimson, 
adorned  with  a  white  tassel.  The  friends  of  liberty,  equality, 
and  the  rights  of  man  were  enthusiastic  over  a  fight  which 
had  just  taken  place  outside  the  bay  between  "  L'Embuscade" 
and  the  British  frigate  "Boston,"  in  response  to  a  challenge  in 
discreetly  sent  by  Captain  Courtney  of  the  latter  vessel;  for 
the  French  commander,  Bompard,  had  won  with  the  superior 
Vv'.-sel  and  Courtney  was  killed.  But  the  popularity  of  Genet, 
which  had  now  begun  to  wane,  declined  rapidly  as  soon  as  it 


254  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

was  perceived  that  he  had  made  an  issue  with  our  adminis 
tration,  on  whose  behalf  meetings  were  now  called  in  all  the 
leading  cities  of  the  Union  to  strengthen  the  President  in  his 
attitude  of  neutrality. 

Hamilton  and  Knox  having  failed  in  their  effort  to  pro 
cure  Washington's  sanction  to  a  full  publication  of  the  Genet 
correspondence,  for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  the  adminis 
tration  before  the  people,  did  not  fail  to  let  the  minister's 
boastful  threat  leak  out ;  and,  a  report  gaining  circulation 
accordingly  that  Genet  had  declared  he  would  appeal  to  the 
people  from  certain  decisions  of  the  President,  a  newspaper 
card  appeared  over  the  signatures  of  John  Jay  and 
Rufus   King  which   vouched  for  its  authenticity. 
Genet,  now  put  upon  his  defence,  appeared  at  a  constant  dis 
advantage,  which  his  ridiculous  strut,  in  the  manifest  effort  to 
produce  popular  effect,  increased.     Pie  first  wrote  to  the  Presi 
dent,  asking  him  to  disavow  that  he  had  ever  threat 
ened  such  an  appeal ;  but  to  this  he  received,  through 
Jefferson,  a  frigid  reminder  that  the  established  channel  for 
diplomatic  correspondence  was  through  the  Secretary  of  State, 
with  a    hint,  moreover,   that   bearing  evidence   against  the 
declaration  of  others  did  not  come  within   the  President's 
Nov       line  of  duty.     Demanding  next  a  prosecution  of 
Jay  and  King  for  libel,  which  the  Attorney-Gen 
eral  finally  refused,  he,  Genet,  threatened  to  institute  legal 
proceedings  on  his   own  behalf,    whereupon   Jay  and   King 
issued  another  public  statement,  giving  the  source  of  their 
information,  and  recounting  the  interviews  held  with  Genet 
over  "The  Little  Sarah  "  at  greater  length.    This  concluded  the 
issue  as  concerned  the  public,  whose  quick  resentment  of  the 
affront  Genet  was  shown  by  such  testimony  to  have  offered 
their  Chief  Magistrate  must  have  been  keen  enough  to  con 
vince  Genet  that  he  had  ill-chosen  his  tribunal.* 

Genet  suffered  further  in  American  esteem  from  the  revela- 

*  From  a  counter-statement  by  Dallas  it  might  perhaps  be  inferred 
that  Genet's  intemperate  threat  was  not  revolutionary,  but  that  he  only 
misapprehended  the  constitutional  functions  of  an  American  Executive. 
Genet  had  denied  too  much,  however3  to  enable  himself  to  set  up  such 
a  plea. 


1793.  THE   GENET   MISSION.  255 

tion  that  some  of  the  fiercest  tirades  against  the  government 
which  had  appeared  in  Bache's  paper  were  prepared  by  his 
own  secretary.  And  about  the  close  of  the  year  filibustering 
designs  against  the  Spanish  possessions  at  the  Southwest  were 
disclosed,  in  which  he  was  actively  implicated.*  Wash 
ington  was  about  to  supersede  Genet's  functions  altogether, 
when  dispatches  came  from  France  announcing  his  recall  by 
the  new  ministry  in  terms  which  strongly  disapproved  of  his 
behavior.  The  new  minister  of  the  French  Republic,  Fauchet, 
arriving  in  February,  proceeded  quietly  and  quickly  to  Phila 
delphia,  with  his  credentials,  as  though  to  point  a  contrast 
with  his  predecessor  by  procuring  recognition  before  under 
taking  his  functions.  Genet,  who  had  at  the  last  disclosed 
his  instructions  through  the  medium  of  the  press  more  freely 
than  was  proper  for  the  sake  of  a  personal  vindication,  valued 
his  life  too  well  to  risk  returning  to  France.  As  the  most 
permanent  success  of  his  mission,  he  had  won  the  hand  of 
Governor  Clinton's  daughter ;  so,  leaving  French  politics 
with  its  vicissitudes,  he  now  subsided  quietly  into  domestic  life 
in  New  York,  the  waters  of  forgetfulness  closing  over  him  as 
he  disappeared  from  public  sight. 

A  minor  cause  of  offence  had  been  the  authority  conferred 
by  Genet  upon  the  French  consuls  and  vice-consuls  in  American 
ports  to  decide  prize  questions  like  courts  of  admiralty,  thus 
virtually  condemning  vessels  in  case  of  capture,  without  an 
impartial  hearing.")"     A  circular  was  issued  by  the 
President's    direction    threatening   to    revoke   the 
exequatur  of  any  consular  officer  who  should  persist  in  such 
usurpation  ;   and  in   a   flagrant   case,  that   of  the 

i     .       TI  i        i       i     f       M  i  i      October. 

vice-consul    m   Boston,   who  had  forcibly  rescued 
a  vessel   brought  in  as  a  French  prize  from  the  hands  of 
the  United  States  marshal,  this  threat  was  carried  into  exe 
cution.     But  the  public  sympathy  rendered  it  impossible  to 
indict  the  consul  for  his  misconduct,  much  to  the  delight  of 

*  See  Boston  Centinel,  November,  1793,-January,  179-1;  Congres 
sional  Documents. 

f  Some  years  later  the  Supreme  Court  pronounced  a  decision  which 
declared  the  French  consular  courts  invalid,  and  established  prize  juris 
diction  in  the  District  Courts  of  the  United  States.  See  3  Dallas,  6. 


256  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Genet,  who  had  protested  insolently  against  the  executive 
procedure.  Though  Hammond  had  complained  of  the 
French  institution,  the  Colonial  prize  courts  of  his  own  gov 
ernment  were  scarcely  better.  The  governor  of  every  little 
island  in  the  British  West  Indies  was  exalted  into  a  prize 
judge,  and  compensated  by  fees,  ignorant  as  he  might  be  of 
the  law  he  administered,  and  dissolute  in  his  habits.  It  be 
came  almost  certain  confiscation  for  an  American  vessel  to  be 
brought  to  the  Bermudas,  and  appeals  were  so  obstructed  as 
to  be  practically  of  little  or  no  avail. 

— -9 

Before  the  recall  of  Genet  had  been  determined  upon, 
Washington  held  in  his  hands  the  proffered  resignations  of 
his  two  chief  secretaries.  His  peace  of  mind,  and  the  har 
mony  of  the  administration  councils,  required  that  one  or  both 
should  be  promptly  acceptedv  Jefferson  had  proposed  resign 
ing  in  September,  but  the  President  induced  him  to  remain 
until  the  end  of  the  year,  when  Congress  would  be  assem 
bled  and  the  present  foreign  difficulties  be  surmounted.  It 
was  Hamilton's  wish,  however,  that  his  own  retirement  should 
take  effect  not  sooner  than  the  close  of  the  corning  session,  for 
department  plans  were  to  be  brought  forward  in  Congress, 
and  an  opportunity  afforded  for  resuming  that  investigation 
into  his  official  conduct  which  neither  he  nor  the  President 
thought  concluded  in  the  recent  short  session. 

Hamilton  appears  to  have  had  no  stronger  motive  for  re 
signing  than  the  sensitiveness  he  felt  as  to  his  financial  pro 
jects,  and  a  conviction  that  Washington  was  wary  about  com 
mitting  himself  to  them,  as  though  personally  distrusting  his 
good  faith.*  But  with  Jefferson,  it  was  a  feeling  of  profound  dis 
gust  concerning  his  present  position  in  the  government,  liable 
as  it  was  to  misconception.  He  had  held  over  a  few  months 
only  to  find  that  on  the  new  foreign  issues,  which  most  affected 
his  own  department,  he  was  far  from  being  in  accord  with 
the  President.  The  newspaper  which  was  looked  upon  as 
Jefferson's  pet  organ  denounced  the  President  constantly  in 

*  See  Hamilton's  Works,  June,  July,  1793 ;  5  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Ke- 
public,  269,  etc. 


1793.  JEFFERSON   OX   NEUTRALITY.  257 

words  which  wounded  to  the  quick.  Madison,  and  the  new 
opposition  party,  too,  looked  to  him  constantly  for  direction. 
The  ultra  French  partisans  thought  hhn  pusillanimous,  or 
rather,  as  Genet  tartly  insinuated  in  his  correspondence,  as  a 
person  who  had  "an  official  language  and  a  language  confi 
dential."  His  position  grew  more  intolerable  every  day. 
Scarcely  a  phase  of  the  belligerent  troubles  had  come  up  for 
cabinet  discussion  which  did  not  find  Jefferson  advocating  one 
course  and  Hamilton  another;  the  latter  always  carrying Knox 
with  him,  while  the  former  found  but  slippery  support  from 
Randolph,  whose  mind  ran  to  cobweb  distinctions,  and  who, 
as  Jefferson  used  to  say,  would  give  the  shells  to  him  and  the 
oyster  to  Hamilton. 

Jefferson  had  considered  the  proclamation  of  neutrality  a 
bitter  pill,  but  needful  to  keep  the  United  States  out  of  a 
foreign  war.  In  its  practical  enforcement,  however,  he  would 
not  have  had  Britain,  without  a  treaty,  better  off  than  France 
with  one ;  and  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  President,  high- 
minded  and  honorable  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  had  set  a 
machine  in  motion  which  he  could  not  afterwards  regulate  at 
pleasure.  And  yet,  warm  as  were  his  sympathies  for  France, 
and  ready  as  he  doubtless  was  to  give  her  the  advantage  as  a 
belligerent  nation,  Jefferson  gauged  Genet  very  quickly,  and 
warned  his  friends  that  unless  the  Republican  party  abandoned 
so  imprudent  a  man  he  would  ruin  it.  Nor  would  he  commit 
himself  to  the  new  party  style  of  "Democrat,"  or  the  Demo 
cratic  clubs  which  were  now  forming  in  the  chief  centres  after 
the  Jacobin  model,  under  the  auspices  of  Americans  as  respect 
able  as  Rittenhouse.  He  ever  clung  to  the  name  of 
"Republican,"  and  his  present  advice  was  that  the 
Republican  party  should  approve  unequivocally  of  a  state  of 
neutrality,  avoid  little  cavils  as  to  who  should  declare  it,  and 
abandon  Genet,  with  expressions  of  friendship  for  his  nation 
and  a  confidence  that  he  misrepresented  it. 

But  Hamilton  and  his  advocacy  of  British  interests  Jefferson 
detested.  Hamilton,  who  harmonized  scarcely  better  with 
the  President  in  his  policy,  had  begun  publishing  in  June,  as 
"  Pacificus,"  a  series  of  newspaper  essays,  which  defended  the 
proclamation  of  neutrality  from  his  own  peculiar  standpoint, 
VOL.  i.— 22 


258  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

and  as  though  to  lead  the  Executive  to  a  repudiation  of  the 
guarantee,  irrespective  of  Congress  or  the  judiciary.  In  an 
other  anonymous  series,  as  "  No  Jacobin/'  he  set  out  to  break 
down  the  French  treaties  more  completely.  Madison,  as 
"  Helvidius,"  entered  the  lists  against  the  dangerous  claim  of 
an  executive  prerogative  which  "  Pacificus"  had  asserted  ;  and 
this  upon  Jefferson's  urgent  appeal  to  take  up  the  pen,  select 
the  most  striking  heresies  of  "  Pacificus,"  and  "  cut  him  to 
pieces  in  the  face  of  the  public."* 

An  attack  of  yellow  fever  in  the  malignant  season   pros 
trated  Hamilton  in  the  midst  of  his  invidious  tasks.     His  re 
covery  was  slow,  and  political  enmities  were  meanwhile  sus 
pended.    While  the  President  himself  was  considering  whether 
to  summon  Congress  to  meet  in  some  safer  place, 
the   disorder   disappeared  from  Philadelphia,  and 
the  national  legislature  reassembled  in  the  brick  court-house 
at  the  time  appointed. 

The  House,  by  reason  of  the  new  apportionment  bill,  had 
passed,  as  was  anticipated,  into  the  control  of  the  Kepub- 
licaus,  who  elected  Frederick  A.  Muhlenberg  as  Speaker  by  a 
majority  of  ten  votes  over  Theodore  Sedgwick,  his  Federal 
competitor.  Even  the  Senate  was  in  an  equipoise  ;  and  hence 
the  refusal  of  that  body,  by  a  strict  party  vote,  to  give  a  new 
Pennsylvania  Senator  his  seat.  This  Senator,  Albert  Gallatin, 
was  the  most  remarkable  among  those  now  pressing  for  the 
first  time  into  the  national  arena.  Of  highly  respectable  Swiss 
nativity,  solid  in  attainments,  and  liberally  educated,  his 
strange  introduction  into  public  life  had  been  as  a  leader 
among  the  turbulent  frontiersmen  of  Western  Pennsylvania, 
with  whom,  a  polished  civilian  in  tastes,  he  had  cast  his  lot. 
The  part  Gallatin  had  taken  in  the  excise  disturbances  of  that 
region  prejudiced  the  Federal  Senators  violently  against  him  ; 
the  real  breadth  and  intellectuality  of  his  character  not  yet 
being  apprehended.  Gallatin  was  old  enough  to  be  qualified 
as  a  Senator,  but  while  the  Federal  Constitution  required  a 

*  Jefferson's  Writings,  June,  July,  1793  ;  5  John  C.  Hamilton  ;  4 
Madison's  Writings,  84. 


1793.  TEMPER   OF   THE   SENATE.  259 

candidate  for  this  honor  to  be  nine  years  "  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,"  he  had  not  in  fact  taken  the  customary  State 
oath  of  allegiance  under  the  Confederacy  until  1785,  though 
a  roving  resident  of  this  country  ever  since  the  year  1780. 
Upon  this  technical  interpretation  of  the  word  "citizen" 
in  the  organic  law  Gallatin  was  denied  admittance  to  the 
Senate;  the  Federalist  members  forecasting,  not  inaccurately, 
that  in  the  present  complexion  of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature 
any  vacancy  they  declared  would  be  filled  by  one  in  stronger 
sympathy  with  the  administration.  But,  as  the  event  proved, 
their  harsh  if  not  wrongful  action  proved  a  positive  advan 
tage  to  so  powerful  a  debater;  for  eventually  Gallatin  was 
placed  in  that  branch  of  Congress,  where  his  opposition  was 
more  conspicuous  and  pervasive,  and  his  public  advancement 
rendered  more  certain. 

The  rising  temper  of  the  Senate  against  the  Federalist  policy 
was  shown  in  the  early  offer  of  a  proposition  to  so  amend 
the  Constitution  as  to  prevent  stockholders  in  the  United 
States  Bank  from  voting  in  Congress.  Although  some  of  the 
members  who  accepted  seats  at  the  directors'  board  of  that 
institution  had  now  prudently  slipped  out,  from  regard  for 
propriety  and  the  good  will  of  their  constituents,  others  still 
remained  who  served  likewise  in  the  national  legislature. 
This  proposition  was  lost  by  a  close  vote ;  not  so,  however,  the 
renewed  motion,  reinforced  by  much  outside  pressure,  to  throw 
open  the  doors  of  the  Senate  during  legislative  sessions.  It 
was  in  the  discussion  over  Gallatin's  qualifications  that  the  en 
tering  wedge  was  here  applied,  and  a  resolve  in  the 
course  of  the  session  provided  that  Senate  delibera 
tions  should  be  open  after  the  end  of  the  present  session,  and 
as  soon  as  suitable  galleries  were  prepared  for  the  use  of  the 
public. 

The  Republican  movement  had  been  gaining  strength  in 
some  of  the  leading  Northern  States.  Pennsylvania,  in  par 
ticular,  had  grown  zealous  on  behalf  of  revolutionary  France, 
her  most  influential,  citizens,  Governor  Mifflin  and  Chief- Jus 
tice  McKean  aiding  the  popular  impulse  in  that  direction. 
Muhlenberg's  return  to  the  speakership,  of  which  the  previous 
Congress  had  deprived  him,  was  partly  in  recognition  of  the 


260  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  Ill 

powerful  support  of  this  State.  In  Massachusetts  the  liberal 
party,  tiring  of  Governor  Hancock  and  that  gout  which  had 
served  him  so  conveniently  on  occasion,  from  countenancing 
their  public  demonstrations,  made  an  effort  at  the  spring  elec 
tion  to  supplant  him  by  Elbridge  Gerry.  But  the  famous 
partnership  of  Hancock  and  Adams  still  bore  down  all  oppo 
sition  in  the  State  ;  for  the  last  time,  however,  as  it  proved,  for 
the  illustrious  penman  of  '76  died  in  October. 

By  the  end  of  the  year  it  had  become  manifest  that  while 
the  French  flame  burned  more  clearly  in  America  after  Genet 
was  snuffed  out,  Great  Britain  alienated  the  affections  of  her 
former  subjects  farther  than  ever.  The  President's  message 
and  documents  set  forth  the  American  grievances  against  her 
government  with  no  effort  to  conceal  or  palliate  them.  Pro 
fessing  that  the  present  European  war  was  an  exceptional  one, 
which  justified  measures  of  exceptional  "stringency,  the  Pitt 
ministry  had  instructed  English  cruisers  to  detain 

1793.-June8.  f^  „  _ 

all  vessels  b^etfmd  to  1  ranee  with  cargoes  ot  corn, 
flour  and  meal,  and  t£ke  forcible  possession  of  the  cargoes  on 
due  payment  for  the  game.  The  main  object  of  this  order  was 
to  take  advantage  of  the  failure  of  the  French  crops,  and  cut 
off  the  provision  supplies  which  would  otherwise  reach  that 
country  and  relieve  the  general  distress.  But  in  effect  a  wan 
ton  outrage  on  neutral  rights  was  here  committed,  for  our 
breadstuff^,  a  native  product,  could  not  properly  be  called 
contraband  when  carried  to  a  place  not  actually  invested  by 
the  enemy,  and  the  effect  of  these  instructions  was  not  only  to 
deny  to  Americans  the  right  of  selling  their  products  to  custom 
ers  of  their  choice,  but  to  force  a  supply  to  a  particular  bellig 
erent.  By  indirection,  too,  American  vessels,  as  distinguished 
from  those  of  Denmark  and  Sweden,  were  declared  liable  to 
condemnation  on  the  first  attempt  to  enter  a  blockaded  port. 
Finally,  in  respect  of  search,  and  the  seizure  of  an  enemy's 
property  on  board  neutral  ships,  the  privileges  of  non  belliger 
ents  were  so  utterly  ignored  that  Great  Britain  seemed  not 
mistress  so  much  as  tyrant  of  the  seas.* 

Of  a  disposition  to  admit  American  vessels  into  the  British 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  Dipl.  Corr. ;  Jefferson's  Works,  1793. 


1793.  BRITISH    ILLIBERAUTY.  261 

"West  Indies  or  to  grant  them  commercial  privileges  of  any 
sort,  there  appeared  no  sign  whatever,  notwithstanding  the 
liberal  offer  of  France  as  to  her  colonial  trade,  which  invited 
a  counter-bid  ;  and  if  both  nations  had  preserved  an  exclusive 
policy  hitherto,  France  and  Great  Britain,  there  was  less 
irritation  felt  against  France,  because  no  former  advantage,  as 
in  the  case  of  Great  Britain,  had  been  taken  away  from  our 
trade. 

The  publication  of  both  the  British  and  the  Genet  correspond 
ence  at  the  end  of  the  year,  enabled  Jefferson  to  retire  from 
office  with  applause  as  one  who  had  defended  American  neu 
trality  ably  against  all  aggressors.  But  as  his  last  official  act 
of  importance,  he  submitted  to  Congress  a  report  T 

v  •  u  •    u     c         '    i       l          ill       December. 

on  American  commerce  which  furnished  valuable 
statistics,  together  with  his  recommendations  for  its  further 
extension.  This  report,  which  Jefferson  had  prepared  in  com 
pliance  with  an  order  of  the  preceding  Congress,  avoided 
carefully  all  irritating  allusions  to  late  controversies,  and  in  a 
lucid  and  forcible  exposition,  free  from  passionate  language, 
summed  up  both  the  restrictions  and  advantages  to  which 
American  commerce  was  subjected.  The  establishment  of  a 
system  of  discriminate  duties  was  strongly  recommended  as 
the  conclusion  ;  a  system  in  accordance  with  the  universal 
practice  of  Europe.*  Parting  from  his  chief  with  respectful 
assurances,  and  receiving  in  return  a  warm  tribute  to  his  in 
tegrity  and  talents,  Jefferson  withdrew7  from  public  life  in  the 
noon  of  popularity.  But  from  Monticello.  after  a  respite  of 
repose,  he  presently  began  to  inspire  rather  than  direct  the 
counsels  of  his  party. 

The  President,  upon  Jefferson's  retirement,  transferred  Ed 
mund  Randolph  to  the  State  Department,  and  gave  the  attor 
ney-generalship  to  William  Bradford,  of  Pennsylvania,  a  man 
of  talents  and  purity  of  life,- but  unfortunately  for  his  country 
in  declining  health.  Freneau's  Gazette  having  suspended  during 

*  7  Jefferson's  Works.  "It  is  not,"  Jefferson  observes,  "to  (lie  mod 
eration  and  justice  of  others  we  are  to  trust  for  fair  and  equal  access  to 
market  with  our  productions,  or  for  our  due  share  in  the  transportation 
of 'them,  hut  to  our  own  means  of  independence  and  the  firm  will  to  use 
them." 


262  HISTORY   OF   THE   UXITED   STATES.      CHAP.  Ill, 

the  season  of  yellow  fever,  the  Advertiser,  henceforth  famous  as 
Bache's  Aurora,  held  the  field  as  the  ablest  and  most  outspoken 
anti-administration  organ  at  the  seat  of  government. 

Accepting  without  question  the  neutral  position  which  the 
President  had  assumed  towards  belligerent  Europe 
upon  his  executive  responsibility,  the  House  ma 
jority,  nevertheless,  began  with   the  new  year  to  stimulate 
general  resentment  against  Great  Britain,  strong  already,  now 
that  her  selfish,  unaccommodating  and  domineering  disposi 
tion  had  become  so  fully  revealed. 

In  his  usual  calm  and  dispassionate  manner,  Majlisoji  brought 

forward  in   the  House  resolutions  based  upon  the 

recommendation  of  Jefferson's  report.     The  purport 

of  these  resolutions  was  to  discriminate  against  all  nations  not 

in  treaty  alliance  with  the  United  States.     Special  duties  were 

to  be  laid  upon  the  products  of  such  nations,  also  upon  all 

importations  by  foreign  vessels  from  ports  where  American 

vessels  were  not  admitted,  together  with  those  discriminating 

rates  in  foreign  tonnage  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Madison  had 

in  vain  tried  to  procure  from  the  first  Congress. 

Though  the  name  of  no  foreign  nation  was  expressly  men 
tioned,  and  Spain,  Portugal,  Russia,  and  Denmark,  were  all  in 
the  same  category  with  Great  Britain  in  this  respect,  the  bear 
ing  of  the  resolutions  could  not  be  mistaken.  The  friends  of 
Great  Britain  gained,  therefore,  a  postponement  of  the  discus 
sion  long  enough  to  consult  their  oracle,  and  then 
Smith,  of  South  Carolina,  rose  to  deliver  an  elabor 
ate  speech  against  Madison's  resolutions,  which  bore  the  un 
mistakable  earmarks  of  Hamilton's  own  composition.*  The 
ubiquitous  secretary  had  likewise  procured  a  House  reference 
to  his  department  for  commercial  statistics,  wherewith  he  might 
hope  to  refute  the  statements  contained  in  Jefferson's  report. 
Availing  himself  of  such  indirect  opportunities  for  measuring 
swords  once  more  with  his  late  cabinet  rival,  Hamilton  under 
took  to  show,  as  he  had  often  done  during  his  official  intercourse 

*  The  paternity  of  Smith's  speech  was  quickly  discovered  by  Jeffer 
son  and  others.  Hamilton's  son  admits  that  the  Secretary  prepared  it. 
5  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic. 


1794.  DISCRIMINATION   POLICY.  263 

with  Jefferson,  that  the  United  States  had  no  special  ground 
of  complaint  against  Great  Britain  as  distinct  from  others 
who  dealt  with  her,  and  that  if  the  French  system  was  more 
favorable  as  to  American  navigation,  it  was  less  favorable  in 
other  respects.  Even  admitting,  as  Jefferson's  report  had 
represented,  that  three-fourths  of  our  entire  imports  came  from 
Great  Britain  while  in  return  she  took  less  than  half  of  our 
exports,  and  this  by  monopolizing  a  carrying  trade  with 
European  countries  which  we  might  more  advantageously  man 
age  ourselves,  our  large  importation  showed  that  we  found  her 
a  good  nation  to  deal  with,  the  truth  being  that  she  gave  us 
liberal  credit  while  other  nations  did  not.  She  consumed 
more  of  our  products  than  France,  and  even  her  re-export 
ation  to  foreign  countries  was  not  without  a  reciprocal  benefit. 
As  for  the  importance  of  our  own  commerce  to  Great  Britain, 
this,  he  proceeded  to  say,  is  overrated,  and  if  America  dis 
criminates  against  her  she  will  be  sure  to  retaliate,  as  she 
might  in  various  ways,  and  then  comes  war  against  a  power 
with  whom  we  are  not  strong  enough  to  cope. 

Such  was  the  torrent  of  argument,  of  which  Smith  served 
as  the  gargoyle.  While  the  speech,  which  was  presently  cir 
culated  in  pamphlet  form  and  produced  a  strong  impression, 
had  a  cowardly  tone,  as  though  appealing  to  the  fears  of 
Americans,  the  caution  against  provoking  a  dangerous  retali 
ation  was  not  untimely.  David,  with  his  sling,  did  not  go 
forth  a  more  audacious  combatant  than  would  this  youthful 
nation,  without  a  navy,  against  the  Goliath  of  the  ocean. 
And  though  war  would  not  necessarily  succeed  the  legislative 
experiment  which  America  had  the  right  to  make,  it  was, 
under  the  circumstances,  a  consequence  by  no  means  unlikely 
sooner  or  later.  Madison's  reply,  however,  expressed  a  confi 
dence  that  Great  Britain  would  not  retaliate  in  such  a  case, 
but  rather  turn  her  tardy  efforts  towards  reciprocity  and  the 
treaty  negotiations  so  much  desired.  Ill-will  and  jealousy, 
he  observed,  had  been  the  predominant  features  of  her  con 
duct  toward  America,  encouraged,  as  it  was,  by  the  idea  of 
our  impotence  and  want  of  union.  Nor  could  he  admit,  for 
his  part,  that  England's  commercial  regulations  were  as  favor 
able  to  the  United  States  as  to  other  nations  she  dealt  with; 


264  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

and  as  for  using  her  extensive  credit,  this  was  no  gain  to 
America  but  a  positive  evil,  keeping  the  balance  of  trade 
against  us,  discouraging  our  domestic  manufactures,  and 
promoting  luxury.  Great  Britain,  he  argued,  depends  on  us 
for  her  most  essential  supplies. 

With  the  prime  facts  of  our  existing  commercial  relations 
thus  in  dispute,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  debate 
soon  turned  from  discrimination  as  a  policy  to  the 
political  wrongs  we  were  suffering  from  Great  Britain,  and 
the  justice  and  right  of  resenting  them.  The  Federalists 
charged  the  Republicans  with  making  a  covert  attempt,  by 
discrimination,  to  ensnare  the  country  in  a  reckless  war  with 
Great  Britain  in  order  to  gratify  a  passion.  They,  in  return, 
still  maintaining  the  correctness  of  Jefferson's  statistics,  de 
clared  that  the  Federalists  sought  to  assimilate  our  institu 
tions  to  those  of  Great  Britain,  and  keep  us  forever  in  a  state 
of  pupilage.  Dayton,  Boudinot,  and  Ames  were  among  the 
prominent  speakers  against  the  Madison  resolutions;  Giles 
and  others  of  the  talented  Virginia  delegation  in  their  favor. 
Some  of  the  opposition  expressed  themselves  as  perfectly  will 
ing  to  build  up  a  French  market,  if  need  be,  at  England's 
expense.  A  conservative  speech  was  made  by  Samuel  Smith, 
a  Baltimore  merchant,  who  began  his  career  in  Congress  as 
an  independent,  but  presently  became  a  supporter  of  Jeffer 
son  ;  and  another  new  member,  Samuel  Dexter,  of  Massachu 
setts,  a  lively  debater,  of  liberal  tendencies,  and  -a  man  of 
spirit,  gratified  his  Federal  colleagues  by  making  some  strik 
ing  points  against  the  proposed  legislation* 

All  the  while,  however,  disclosures  were  being  made  which 
might  well  appal  the  friends  of  Great  Britain. 

The  United  States  had  sought  commercial  arrangements 
with  Spain,  so  as  to  include,  if  possible,  an  adjustment  of  the 
long-standing  dispute  over  the  Mississippi  navigation;  but, 
pending  the  negotiations  at  Madrid,  France  declared  war 
against  that  country.  This  brought  Spain  into  league  with 
Great  Britain,  under  circumstances  which  made  her  fearful 
of  losing  her  American  possessions  should  France  and  the 
United  States  make  common  cause  with  one  another.  It  so 
happened  that  the  crews  of  certain  American  vessels,  captured 


1794.  ALGERINE   TROUBLES.  265 

years  before  by  the  Algerines,  had  remained  imprisoned  while 
the  pirate  nation  was  trying  to  procure  from  our  government 
an  extortionate  ransom.  This  our  President  hesitated  to  pay. 
Portugal,  having  in  the  meantime  quarrelled  with  the  Alge 
rines,  kept  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  closed  and  hemmed  the 
pirates  into  the  Mediterranean,  when,  suddenly  and  without 
warning,  a  truce  was  made  by  the  British  consul-general  at 
Algiers,  upon  a  partial  understanding  with  Portugal,  who  had 
likewise  become  an  ally  against  France,  and  eight  corsair 
vessels  were  let  out  to  prey  upon  the  ocean. 

This  alarming  information  the  President  had  conveyed  to 
Congress  before  the  new  year  in  a  confidential  mes- 

Dec  93  1793 

sage ;  and  in  view  of  the  new  danger  to  which  Amer 
ican  vessels  were  exposed  on  the  high  seas  it  became  expedient 
to  determine,  without  delay,  whether  our  government,  follow 
ing  the  contemptible  custom  which  prevailed  among  other 
civilized  nations,  should  ransom  its  captive  crews  and  pur 
chase  a  peace  with  the  Barbary  powers,  or  take  the  novel  but 
commendable  course  of  sending  out  a  force  to  chastise  the 
enemies  of-  mankind  as  they  deserved.  Congress  provided 
for  either  contingency,  confiding  methods  to  the 
President's  own  discretion ;  and  the  foundation  of 
our  American  navy  was  accordingly  laid  in  an  act  of  this 
session,  which  authorized  four  44-gun  ships  and  two  of  36 
guns  to  be  built,  officered,  and  manned.  And  yet.  so  hostile 
appeared  the  Republicans,  Virginia's  delegates  in  particular, 
to  strengthening  the  national  establishment  at  this  time,  that 
naval  preparations  were  ordered  to  cease  in  case  of  a  peace 
with  Algiers.* 

The  official  explanation  of  this  injurious  procedure  showed 
that  the  British  consul-general  at  Algiers  was,  at  all  events, 
superserviceable  on  Portugal's  behalf;  but  the  disagreeable 
impression  produced  on  the  President's  own  mind  was  that  of 
an  artful  British  trick  for  loosing  the  wolves  upon  our  fold, 
and  such,  in  fact,  Genet  had  insisted  was  the  meaning. 

While  this  recollection  rankled  America  had  another  griev 
ance  less  questionable.  The  British  rule  of  1756,  enforced 
against  the  Baltic  powers  and  their  neutral  doctrine  of  "free 

*  Act  March  27th,  1794. 
VOL.  i.— 23 


266  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

ships,  free  goods,"  was  now  extending  so  as  actually  to  pro 
hibit  to  the  United  States  even  a  trade  lawful  in  time  of  peace. 
The  House  had  postponed  the  discussion  of  Madison's  resolu 
tions  from  early  February  to  March,  by  which  time  came 
news  that  American  vessels  in  the  West  Indies  were  being 
seized  and  condemned  by  British  governors  on  frivolous  pre 
texts.  What  could  all  this  mean?  it  was  asked.  Inquiry 
revealed  a  new  British  order  in  council,  dated  November  6th, 
which  extended  its  policy  against  neutrals  so  as  to  take 
away  the  last  shred  of  American  commerce  in  that  vicinity. 
This  new  order  directed  British  cruisers  to  detain  all  ships 
laden  with  goods,  the  produce  of  any  French  colony,  or  car 
rying  provisions  or  supplies  for  the  use  of  such  colony.  An 
authentic  copy  of  this  sweeping  mandate  reached  Philadelphia 
about  March  7th,  and  its  contents  were  at  once  published  by 
the  press. 

The  vexation  against  Great  Britain,  which  had  been  on  the 
increase  all  winter,  was  now  lashed  into  sudden  fury.  Neu 
trals  in  debate,  who  had  hitherto  disapproved  the  Madison 
resolutions  as  irritating,  now  pronounced  them  only  too  tame 
lor  the  new  occasion.  The  partisans  of  Great  Britain  in 
Congress  were  reduced  to  a  helpless  faction.  In  the  new  dis 
cussion  which  arose  Ames  had  the  temerity  to  denounce  these 
resolutions  as  having  "  French  "  stamped  upon  their  face.  "  I 
wish,"  said  Parker,  of  Virginia,  in  reply,  "there  was  a  stamp 
on  the  forehead  of  every  member  to  show  whether  he  is  for 
France  or  England.  For  my  part  I  will  not  sit  silently  to 
hear  that  nation  abused  to  whom  America  is  indebted  for  her 
rank  as  a  nation."  Loud  applause  from  the  galleries  greeted 
this  spirited  rebuke. 

To  a  humane  mind  might  appear  some  aggravating  circum 
stances  connected  with  this  new  outrage  upon  neutral  com 
merce.  The  French  revolution  had  engendered  civil  commo 
tions  in  St.  Domingo,  Martinique,  and  others  of  the  French 
colonial  possessions,  which  culminated  when  the  National 
Convention  of  France  proclaimed  negro  emancipation  in 
those  islands.  Now  the  British  order  in  council,  which  so 
affronted  the  United  States,  was  really  issued  in  aid  of  a  great 
expedition,  simultaneously  planned  for  making  a  conquest  of 


1794.  ANGEfl   AGAINST   GREAT   BRITAIN.  267 

these  French  West  Indies,  with  Spain's  co-operation.  The 
enterprise,  which  relied  for  success  upon  the  aid  of  French 
malcontents,  the  late  slave-owners,  in  fact,  who  had  asked 
the  invasion  on  their  own  behalf,  proved  in  the  end  only  par 
tially  successful. - 

The  excitement  against  Great  Britain  was  aggravated  by 
another  publication,  namely,  of  what  purported  to  be  a  speech, 
made  in  February  by  Lord  Dorchester,  to  the  Canada  Indi 
ans,  in  which  the  opinion  was  expressed  that  there  would  soon 
be  war  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  Lord 
Dorchester  had  just  returned  from  England  and  might  well 
have  spoken  by  authority.  Notwithstanding  Lord  Gren- 
ville's  equivocal  denial  in  Parliament  that  the  ministry  had 
authorized  any  one  to  incite  the  Indians  against  the  American 
States,  the  speech  was  authentic,  and  as  the  expression  of  one 
habitually  cautious  in  his  utterances,  Washington  attached 
great  weight  to  it.* 

While  the  pulse  of  Congress  beat  highest,  Dayton,  of  New 
Jersey,  who  had  begun  the  session  as  a  conservative,  offered 
in  the  House  a  resolution  for  sequestering  all  British  debts  in 
the  United  States  as  an  indemnity  fund  against  the  wrongful 
seizures  of  our  vessels.  This  caused  the  greatest  consterna 
tion  among  British  partisans.  Waverers  asked  delay  ;  it  was 
objected,  too,  that  this  course  would  injure  American  credit 
abroad,  and  that  we  ought  not  to  rush  precipitately  into  war 
before  trying  negotiation.  But  the  House  inclined  to  pass 
the  resolution  at  once,  reserving  intact  only  British  invest 
ments  in  the  public  funds.  "Reprisal  is  a  right,  reprisal  is  a 
duty,"  exclaimed  Giles  in  the  debate. 

An  embargo  had  already  been  laid  on  all  foreign-bound 


*  Marshall  has  questioned  the  authenticity  of  Lord  Dorchester's 
speech,  as  did,  of  course,  some  Federal  writers  for  the  press  also  when  it 
first  appeared.  But  Ilildreth  and  Sparks  incline  to  think  it  was  not 
spurious,  and  it  appears  that  Governor  Clinton  made  inquiry,  at  Wash 
ington's  own  request,  and  thought  the  speech  genuine.  See  10  Wash 
ington's  Writings;  4  Ilildreth,  483.  None  of  these  writers  appear  to 
have  been  aware  that,  in  response  to  Randolph's  letter  of  May  20th, 
1794,  the  British  minister  acknowledged  the  authenticity  of  the  speech 
in  material  particulars.  Hammond  to  Randolph,  May  22d,  1794. 


268  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

vessels  in  our  ports  for  thirty  days,  and  this  was  afterwards 
extended  thirty  days  longer,  and  then  left  by  law 
to  the  President's  discretion  during  the  entire 
recess.* 

Sedgwick,  the  author  of  the  embargo  measure,  had  very 
promptly  proposed  an  increase  of  the  army  besides,  by  rais 
ing  fifteen  new  regiments,  to  be  enlisted  for  two  years,  or,  in 
case  of  war  for  three.  But  this  was  a  Hamilton  inspiration, 
and,  distrusting  the  source,  the  majority  had  the  proposition 
laid  over  and  finally  rejected  ;  our  reliance  was  placed  chiefly 
on  quotas  of  State  militia  instead,  as  the  military  act  finally 
passed,  who  would  serve  on  short  enlistments  if  called  out  at 
ail.f  Other  bills  provided  for  the  defence  of  ports  and  -har- 
bors,J  and  authorized  the  President  to  borrow  $2,000,000  on 
the  credit  of  the  United  States.§ 

The  Republicans,  by  urging  on  war  measures  against  Great 
Britain,  while  hesitating  to  incur  a  debt,  or  sanction  an  effi 
cient  army  and  navy,  exposed  themselves,  doubtless,  to  ridi 
cule.  But  this  developed,  at  all  events,  an  honest  purpose  on 
their  part  to  try  legislative  retaliation  rather  than  invoke 
force  in  aid  of  either  foreign  belligerent.  This  sudden  zeal 
of  the  Hamilton  clique  for  energetic  measures,  on  the  other 
hand,  appeared  to  them  cunningly  contrived,  if  not  to  embar 
rass  the  policy  of  commercial  restrictions  against  Great  Brit 
ain,  at  least  to  convert  every  contingency  into  a  resource  for 
accumulating  force  in  the  government.  Such  sinister  motives 
were  not,  perhaps,  to  be  imputed  to  Sedgwick,  who,  like 
Boudinot,  spoke  feelingly  in  debate  as  one  indignant  with  the 
wrongs  we  had  borne  from  Great  Britain.  But  the  guiding 
hand  of  the  Federalist  party  in  Congress  was  that  of  one 
whose  heart  did  not  easily  kindle  against  that  country.  While 
Hamilton  had  all  the  winter  been  writing  down  France  anony 
mously,  and  depicting  the  horrors  of  her  revolution,  not  one 
word  had  yet  escaped  him  in  all  his  voluminous  correspoud- 

*  See  Resolutions  March  2Gth  and  April  18th,  1794;  Act  June  4th, 
1794,  c.  41. 

f  Act  May  9th,  1794,  c.  27 ;  and  see  Act  May  9th,  1794,  c.  24. 
j  Act  March  20th,  1794,  c.  9 ;  May  9th,  1794,  c.  25. 
I  Acts  March  20th,  1794,  c.  8 ;  June  9th,  1794,  c.  63. 


1794.  HAMILTON   ON    THE   CRISIS.  269 

ence,  public  or  private,  which  implied  the  belief  that  we  suf 
fered  wrong  from  France's  antagonist. 

Hamilton's  sudden  desire  for  troops  arose,  perhaps,  from  a 
conviction  that  a  crisis  in  the  republic  was  impending.  To 
honest  Ames,  certainly,  America  seemed  on  the  verge  of  an 
archy.  Nor  in  his  whispered  confidences  to  his  friends  did 
he  spare  the  nation  whom  he  and  his  Eastern  band  were 
thanklessly  trying  to  save  from  herself.  "  The  English,"  he 
writes,  "  are  absolutely  madmen.  Order  in  this  country  is 
endangered  by  their  hostility  no  less  than  by  French  friend 
ship.  They  act  in  almost  every  point  against  their  interest 
and  their  real  wishes."  And  he  spoke  bitterly  of  the  British 
minister,  the  petulant  Hammond,  who  was  carrying  on  a 
fussy  correspondence  with  Randolph  at  so  alarming  a  junc 
ture,  and  railing  constantly  against  the  United  States  in  a 
gabble  quite  unintelligible  and  undignified.* 

Cabot  and  Strong,  of  Massachusetts,  Ellsworth,  of  Connec 
ticut,  and  King,  of  New  York,  had,  upon  a  joint  conference, 
agreed  that  a  special  mission  to  England  was  the  thing  desir 
able,  and  their  secret  effort  with  the  President,  to  which  the 
leading  Eastern  Federalists  of  both  Houses  bent  themselves, 
was  to  make  Hamilton  the  envoy ."f  A  selection  more  unwise 
was  inconceivable  ;  for,  even  admitting  Hamilton  capable  of 
resisting  the  seductive  influences  of  the  British  aristocracy, 
and  turning  to  the  advocacy  of  our  neutral  rights  as  though 
he  believed  there  had  been  infractions,  yet,  with  Congress  and 
the  people  no  treaty,  since  Great  Britain  would  not  grant  all 
we  asked,  was  so  surely  condemned  in  advance  as  that  one 
bearing  the  name  of  the  most  dreaded  Augloman  in  America 
as  its  negotiator.  Hamilton,  besides,  was  still  under  investi 
gation  as  to  his  financial  conduct;  and  though  himself  freely 
courting  inquiry,  and  bringing  utter  discomfiture  upon  all 
who  conducted  the  prosecution,  he  had  not  been  fully  exoner 
ated,  but,  on  the  contrary,  was  still  so  much  distrusted  in 
Congress  that  the  House  had  at  this  session  actually  created  a 
committee  of  ways  and  means  to  consider  ^penditures,  rather 

*  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  March,  17$£;'%J«miltQn's  Works ;  5  J.  C. 
Hamilton's  Republic. 

f  5  Hamilton's  Republic. 


270  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

than  continue  longer  to  refer  such  questions  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.* 

,  Whether  the  British   ministry  really  took  alarm  at  the 
threatening  proceedings  of  Congress,  or  had  only  begun  to 
apprehend  that  the  United  States,  in  casting  off' Genet,  meant 
to  refuse  a  war  on  the  side  of  France  unless  forced  to  fight  in 
order  to  have  their  neutrality  respected,  they  now  superseded 
the  offensive  order  of  November  6th   by  new  instructions, 
dated  back  conveniently  to  January  8th,  which  left  American 
trade  with  the  French  West  Indies  unmolested,  save  in  re 
spect  of  property  belonging  to  French  subjects,  or  French 
products  carried  directly  to  France.     This  concession,  accom 
panied  by  Grenville's  soothing  expressions  to  Piuckuey,  and 
his  personal  assurance  that  the  desire  of  the  United  States  to 
maintain  neutrality  had  prompted  this  change  of  instructions, 
had  a  mollifying  effect.     Congress  welcomed   the 
news,  and  in  the  House  the  debate  on  Dayton's  reso 
lution  for  sequestering  British  debts  was  postponed. 
This  favoring  lull  Washington  improved  by  send 
ing;  to  the  Senate,  as  he  had  determined  was  desir- 

Apr.  16-19.       ,,         ,  .    ,  ... 

able,  the  name  or  a  special  envoy  to  act  in  conjunc 
tion  with  the  resident  minister  in  London,  but  the  name  was 
not  Hamilton,  but  that  of  the  Chief  Justice,  John  Jay.  This 
nomination  was  readily  confirmed  against  the  opposition  of 
Burr  and  Monroe.  The  more  ardent  Republicans  feared  that 
Jay  was  too  facile  a  diplomate  to  send  on  such  an  errand, 
but  the  commercial  class  highly  favored  this  appointment, 
and  the  only  point  made  against  him  for  public  effect  was 
that  one  actually  holding  the  office  of  chief  justice  ought  not 
at  the  same  time  to  go  abroad  as  an  envoy. 

The  House  still  showed  an  inclination  to  prejudice  negotia- 

*  John  C.  Hamilton  considers  that  the  investigation  of  Hamilton  at 
this  session  fully  exonerated  him.  This  may  be  true  as  to  certain  charges, 
as,  for  instance,  that  of  deviation  from  the  acts  which  authorized  loans, 
and  the  President's  written  instructions,  in  any  such  sense  as  to  impugn 
his  integrity.  But,  in  reality,  investigation  lagged  then  and  there 
after,  because  of  the  pressure  of  other  business  and  disinclination,  and 
hence  never  reached  a  point.  Justice  to  Hamilton  fairly  requires  that 
he  be  considered  as  amply  vindicated ;  this,  however,  chiefly  on  the 
ground  that  his  prosecutors  in  fact  dropped  their  task. 


1794.  SPECIAL    MISSION    TO    ENGLAND.  271 

tions  under  the  plea  that  a  spirited  rebuke  would  facilitate 
them.  Madison's  resolutions  were,  of  course,  inappropriate 
to  the  emergency,  and  his  own  friends  refused  to  vote  for 
them  ;  but  in  place  of  sequestering  British  debts  by  way  of  se 
curity  for  a  satisfactory  treaty,  Dayton's  colleague,  Clark,  had 
substituted  the  less  offensive  one,  pursued  in  revolutionary 
times,  of  non-intercourse  ;  and  Jay's  confirmation  did  not  pre 
vent  the  House  from  passing,  by  58  to  38,  a  bill  which  would 
have  discontinued  all  importation  of  articles  of  British  growth 
and  manufacture  until  our  neutral  losses  were  compensated, 
and  the  Western  posts  surrendered.  The  President  felt  re 
lieved  when  this  bill,  which  he  would  doubtless  have  vetoed, 
was  arrested  in  the  Senate  at  a  third  reading  by  the  casting 
vote  of  the  Vice-President.  A  last  effort  of  the  Virginia 
Senators  to  procure  a  suspension  of  the  British  debts  article, 
in  the  treaty  of  1 783,  received  only  their  two  votes.  And 
thus,  not  without  difficulty,  was  Congress  finally  induced  to 
leave  Jay's  mission  to  work  through  the  executive  channel. 

While  the  plan  of  a  British  mission  was  under  considera 
tion,  tidings  of  the  Eastern  combination  on  Hamilton's  be 
half  got  abroad,  and  Monroe,  representing  in  a  note  that 
such  an  appointment  would  be  highly  injurious,  asked  a  per 
sonal  interview  with  the  President  to  explain  his  reasons  for 
entertaining  such  a  belief.  But  Washington,  sensitive  both 
on  Hamilton's  account  and  his  own,  first  took  Randolph's 
adyice  as  to  the  propriety  of  permitting  a  Senator  to  interfere 
with  Executive  appointments,  and  then,  somewhat  in  disre 
gard  of  it,  declined  the  interview,  but  informed  Monroe  lof 
tily  that  he  might  communicate  his  objections  in  writing;  a 
permission  of  which  the  latter  did  not  avail  himself.  Yet  a 
hint,  from  whatever  source,  or  however  conveyed,  Washington 
never  threw  away,  much  as  he  might  be  annoyed  by  it;  and 
the  reflective  cast  of  his  mind  was  frequently  shown,  not  in 
reversing  his  sentence,  but  rather  in  pursuing  with  a  favor 
the  next  day  the  person  he  had  hastily  repulsed  the  day  be 
fore.  Although  he  opposed  both  Hamilton  and  Jay 
for  the  British  mission,  Monroe  found  himself 
nominated  presently,  to  his  surprise,  as  minister  to  France, 
this  mark  of  favor  being  bestowed  upon  him  after  Chancellor 


272  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Livingston  had  declined  the  appointment.  The  President 
desired,  in  fact,  to  so  far  disregard  party  preferences  as  to 
send  an  acceptable  minister  to  that  country  in  place  of  Gouv- 
erneur  Morris,  whose  recall  the  French  government  asked,  on 
account  of  his  tattling  disposition  and  notorious  British  pre 
dilection.  Washington  had  thought,  at  first,  of  transferring 
Pinckuey  from  London  to  Paris,  but  Jay  would  not  consent 
to  remain  as  the  permanent  minister  to  Great  Britain. 

Another  diplomatic  appointment  which  sent  a  future  Pres 
ident  across  the  ocean,  was  that  of  the  Vice-President's  tal 
ented  son,  John  Quincy  Adams,  to  the  Hague.  This  flatter 
ing  and  unexpected  call  of  a  youthful  attorney  of  twenty- 
three,  to  take  up  the  career  of  a  statesman,  was  no  mark  of 
favoritism,  but  made  chiefly  in  recognition  of  the  "Publi- 
cola"  and  other  meritorious  contributions  to  the  press  which 
had  employed  his  pen  while  waiting  for  clients. 

The  Republicans  of  Congress  had  set  out  with  the  inten 
tion  of  promoting  economy  and  simplicity  in  national  affairs, 
as  well  as  discouraging  all  tendencies  to  centralization.  But 
the  war-surf  had  lifted  them  off  their  feet  the  first  time  they 
entered  the  ocean,  and  in  the  new  and  unexpected  exigency 
which  had  arisen  it  was  found  needful  to  augment  the  import 
duties  and  extend  the  excise  to  new  articles,  such  as  carri 
ages,  snuff,  and  refined  sugar.*  The  neutral  determination 
found  strong  expression  in  a  foreign  enlistment  act,  which 
forbade  the  recruitment  of  troops  or  the  equipment  of  cruisers 
against  a  friendly  power;  in  which  respect  America  set  an  ex 
ample  which  Great  Britain  was  slow  to  follow.  This  act, 
which  Genet's  misbehavior  had  elicited,  came  down  from  the 
Senate,  where  it  passed  by  the  Vice-President's  casting  vote, 
with  a  provision  attached,  which  the  House  refused  to  enter 
tain,  for  curtailing  the  treaty  privileges  hitherto  enjoyed  by 
French  privateers  in  American  ports.f 

In  January  the  first  annual  convention  of  abolition  socie 
ties  in  America  assembled  at  Philadelphia,  the 
Stales  represented  in  this  and  the  next  succeeding 

*  Acts  June  5th,  1794,  c.  48,  49,  51  ;  June  7th,  1794,  c.  54. 
f  Act  June  5th,  1794.,  c.  50. 


1794.  ABOLITION   CONVENTION.  273 

years  embracing  all  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  Connecti 
cut  to  Virginia.*  Bloomfield,  of  New  York,  was  chosen  to 
preside  over  a  respectable  body,  among  whose  members  ap 
peared  Doctor  Rush,  of  Philadelphia,  and  Uriah  Tracy,  a 
Connecticut  Representative.  Suitable  memorials  to  Congress 
and  the  State  legislatures  were  here  prepared,  also  an  earnest 
address  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States.  "Freedom  and 
slavery,"  are  the  prophetic  words  of  this  address,  "cannot 
long  exist  together."  The  States  which  had  not  yet  abolished 
domestic  slavery  were  urged  in  a  fraternal  strain  to  do  so,  and 
the  convention  advised  the  formation  of  societies  in  every 
State,  to  aid  in  local  abolition  and  stop  the  State  importation 
of  human  beings.  In  response  to  the  memorial  addressed  by 
this  convention  to  Congress,  an  act  was  quietly  passed  at  this 
session  which,  under  heavy  penalties,  prohibited  citizens  and 
residents  from  carrying  on  the  slave  trade  to  any  foreign 
country.*)" 

The  supreme  tribunal  of  the  nation  could  not  have  had  a 
burdensome  docket  at  a  time  when  its  chief  justice  could  be 
dispatched  on  a  foreign  mission  without  detriment  to  its  court 
busiuesss.  And,  indeed,  the  deliberations  at  this  period  of  the 
highest  court  in  the  laud  attracted  so  slight  attention  from 
the  public  that  the  room  where  its  terms  were  held  in  Phila 
delphia  for  ten  years  is  not  positively  known  at  this  day.f 

*  These  conventions  were  annually  held  at  Philadelphia  for  four 
years  at  least,  and  certainly  continued  to  meet  at  periodical  intervals 
until  the  war  of  1812  or  later.  But  after  the  first  two  or  three  years, 
and  more  especially  by  the  time  Philadelphia  had  ceased  to  be  the  seat 
of  government,  distant  delegates  did  not  often  attend. 

At  this  convention  of  1794  delegates  were  present  from  the  societies 
of  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and 
Maryland.  The  Virginia  society,  through  some  misunderstanding  re 
specting  the  appointment  of  substitutes,  failed  of  representation  this 
year,  but  sent  delegates  to  the  convention  of  1795.  Penn.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll. 

f  Act  March  22d,  179-1,  c.  11. 

J  The  court  sessions  were  undoubtedly  held,  however,  in  the  '*  City 
Hall,"  corner  of  Fifth  and  Chestnut  Streets.  And  probably  a  south 
•chamber  upstairs,  was  the  room  actually  assigned.  J.  W.  Wallace's  Dis 
course,  Penn.  Hist.  Soc.,  1872. 


274  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Resignations  at  this  period  were  frequent  among  the  justices, 

one  reason  for  which  must  have  been  the  obloquy  the  court 

had  to  encounter  in  pronouncing  its  first  constitutional  decision 

of  importance.     That  decision  in  effect  affirmed  the 

Feb. 1793.       .    ,  „  .  , 

right  or  a  non-residerit  citizen  to  sue  the  btate  of 
Georgia  for  money  before  that  tribunal.*  The  next  day  after 
this  opinion  was  reluctantly  rendered,  Sedgwick,of  Massachu 
setts,  whose  State  was  exposed  to  similar  litigation,  proposed  in 
the  House  a  constitutional  amendment  for  depriving  Federal 
courts  of  the  dangerous  jurisdiction  of  dealing  with  a  State  as 
a  party  defendant.  The  Massachusetts  legislature,  specially 
convened  some  mouths  later,  enforced  this  proposal 
by  suitable  resolutions,  while  in  Georgia  the  knot 
was  cut  impetuously  by  a  statute  denouncing  death  against 
any  one  who  should  presume  to  enforce  any  such  process 
within  its  jurisdiction.  Congress  now  initiated  a  new  consti 
tutional  amendment  which  forbade  citizens  of  other  States  or 
foreigners  from  suing  one  of  the  United  States  in  law  or 
equity. f  This  amendment  the  State  legislatures  promptly 
ratified,  and  a  fresh  proof  was  afforded  of  the  elasticity  and 
strength  of  our  new  Federal  compact  as  compared  with  the 
old. 

Congress  adjourned  June  9th,  leaving  foreign  relations  for 
the  time  tranquil.  With  France  there  had  been  little  disturb 
ance  for  months.  True,  some  American  vessels  laden  with  pro 
visions,  had  been  carried  into  French  ports,  and  enemy's  goods 
on  board  of  a  neutral  vessel  had  in  a  few  instances  been  treated 
as  lawful  prize,  contrary  to  the  terms  of  the  French  treaty. 
But  in  Washington's  opinion,  the  conduct  of  France  was  now 
generally  friendly. J  Her  privateers  had  been  few  as  com 
pared  with  those  sent  out  from  the  British  Bermudas,  a  new 
system  of  prize-courts,  which  promised  more  impartiality  than 
before,  had  been  instituted,  and  Fauchet  commenced  his  mis 
sion  with  the  most  gratifying  assurances  that  every  grievance 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  would  soon  be  rectified. § 

*  Chisholm  v.  Georgia,  2  Dall.,  419 ;  Mr.  Justice  Iredell  contra.  - 

f  Kes.  8,  1794.  J  Message  to  Congress,  Dec.  5, 1793,     ' 

I  Dipl.  Corr.,  March,  1794. 


1794.  FOREIGN   AFFAIRS   TRANQUIL.  275 

Of  Great  Britain's  friendship,  on  the  contrary,  Washington's 
unfavorable  impressions  were  still  strong,  and  without  her 
speedy  surrender  of  the  Western  posts  a  genuine  peace  was 
impossible.*  But  Jay,  reaching  London  in  early  June,  met 
with  so  courteous  a  reception  as  to  reassure  our  administra 
tion  and  the  country.  For  the  present,  commercial  intercourse 
was  safe  and  unmolested  as  concerned  both  belligerents,  and 
our  embargo  having  been  raised  at  the  expiration  of  the  sixty 
days,  hundreds  of  vessels  joyfully  spread  their  sails  and  put 
to  sea.f 

Public  attention,  quickly  distracted  from  foreign  affairs, 
fastens  for  the  remainder  of  this  year  upon  two  striking  events, 
which  transpired  in  the  Western  country.  (1.)  The  insurrec 
tion  in  Western  Pennsylvania  ;  (2.)  Wayne's  victory  over  the 
Northwestern  Indians.  The  first  taught  Americans,  among 
other  lessons,  that  the  new  central  government  was  strong 
enough  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  to  crush  out  banded  resist 
ance  to  its  lawful  authority  in  any  local  confines.  The  second 
broke  the  backbone  of  the  Indian  war,  and  proved  it  thence 
forth  impossible  for  the  copper-colored  tribes  to  stem  the 
course  of  white  emigration  towards  the  Mississippi. 

(1.)  The  whiskey  insurrection  in  Western  Pennsylvania, 
was  immediately  occasioned  by  an  unpopular  excise  tax,  though 
the  disaffection  of  this  region  to  Federal  rule  was  the  fruit  of  a 
political  irritation,  not  recent  nor  confined  to  distillers  of 
whiskey  alone.  Distance  from  a  profitable  market  made  these 
trans- Alleghanians  distillers  of  necessity,  to  a  large  extent,  in 
order  that  they  might  realize  from  the  produce  of  their  lands, 
the  greatest  possible  value  with  the  smallest  size  and  weight. 
Considering  their  habits  of  barter,  and  the  general  scarcity  of 
cash  among  them,  the  government  tax  would  have  been  far 
more  readily  collected,  if  accepted  in  kind,  which,  however,  was 
not  permitted.  But  the  greatest  tribulation  consisted  in  the 
obligation  these  distant  distillers  were  under,  should  contro 
versies  arise,  of  responding  to  actions  at  the  far-away  Federal 

*  Washington's  Writings,  April-July,  1794. 

f  When  this  American  embargo  ceased,  it  is  said  244  vessels  were  re 
leased  in  Philadelphia,  222  in  New  York,  and  254  in  Boston.  See 
Boston  Centinel,  June  21st,  1794. 


276  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

District  Court  of  Philadelphia.  This  latter  hardship  Congress 
had  lately  corrected  by  giving  concurrent  jurisdiction  to  State 
courts  in  distillers'  suits,  wherever  the  cause  of  action  accrued 
more  than  fifty  miles  from  the  nearest  Federal  court.*  Had 
this  legislation  taken  effect  upon  the  penalties  previously  in 
curred  by  delinquent  distillers,  the  United  States  Government 
might  have  saved  the  million  dollars  it  now  had  to  spend  in 
suppressing  a  reckless  and  only  half-shod  insurrection. 

Soon  after  Congress  adjourned,  the  United  States  marshal 
received  a  quantity  of  writs  to  serve  in  Western 
Pennsylvania.     These  were  issued  May  31st,  and 
returnable  at  Philadelphia,  and   the  defendants  summoned 
were  delinquent  distillers.     The  writs  for  Fayette  County  were 
served  without  difficulty.     But  proceeding  next  with  General 
Neville,  the  inspector  of  the  district,  through  Alleghany  County, 
the  marshal  was  followed  by  armed  men  and  fired 
upon.     The  next  day  a  mob  approached  Neville's 
house,  demanding  the  surrender  of  his  commission  ;  and  having 
been  repulsed,  with  six  men  wounded,  one  of  them  fatally,  they 
reappeared  on  the  17th,  five  hundred  strong,  and  attacked 
the  place  with  such  fury,  notwithstanding  a  small  detail  of 
troops  had   been  sent  to  the  marshal  from   Fort  Pitt,  that 
Neville  fled  for  his  life,  and  his  house  and  outbuildings  were 
burned.    The  marshal  having  been  captured  was  only  suffered 
to  go  free  on  promising  not  to  serve  further  processes  west  of 
the  Alleghauies.     Escaping  down  the  river  by  boat  to  Mari 
etta,  the  marshal  and  inspector  reached  Philadelphia   by  a 
circuitous  route,  and  there  made  report  to  the  chief  executive. 
The  leading  rioters  called  a  meeting  at  Mingo  Creek,  mean 
time,  which  ended  in  an  unsigned  invitation  to  the 
townships  of  the  four  western  counties  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  of  those  adjoining  in  Virginia,  to  send  delegates  to 
assemble  August  14th,  at  Parkinson's  Ferry,  on  the  Monon- 
gahela.     David  Bradford,  a  braggart  of  sounding  brass,  whom 
Gallatin,  once  a  political  rival,  appears  to  have  held  utterly 
in  contempt,  but  who  nevertheless  had  the  faculty  of  inspiring 
terror  on  this  occasion,  and  who  had  been  concerned  in  the 


*  Act  June  5th,  1794,  c.  49,  $  10. 


1794.  THE   WHISKEY   INSURRECTION.  277 

former  anti-excise  disturbances,  gained  the  chief  control  of  the 
present  movement,  cherishing  the  ambition  on  his  part,  as  later 
investigation  showed,  of  founding  an  independent  State  west  of 
the  mountains.     To  overawe  the  peace  men  of  this 
neighborhood,  Bradford  presently  procured  a  high 
way  robbery  of  the  mail,  and  used  intercepted  letters  written  to 
Philadelphia,  to  kindle  a  popular  fury  against  them.     While 
the  turbulence  was  in  full  flame,  he  and  six  others,  9g 

including  another  of  the  anti-excise  men  of  1792, 
James  Marshall,  directed  the  officers  of  the  local  county  militia 
to  assemble  at  Braddock's  Field,  August  1st,  with  as  many  vol 
unteers,  armed,  equipped  and  supplied  with  four  days'  rations, 
as  they  could  muster.  On  the  appointed  day,  some  A^  i 
two  thousand  armed  militia,  in  yellow  hunting  shirts, 
their  heads  bound  with  kerchiefs,  gathered  at  the  place  of 
rendezvous.  But  as  their  officers  were  distracted  in  councils, 
it  was  concluded  not  to  assail  the  United  States  garrison  at 
the  fort,  as  some  had  desired,  and  the  militia  demonstration 
came  to  nothing  more  than  a  march  through  the  streets  of 
Pittsburg,  to  scare  the  inhabitants.  No  more  wanton  violence 
was  committed  than  burning  a  barn.  The  peace  men,  or 
rather  the  authors  of  the  intercepted  letters,  which  Bradford 
read  aloud  at  Braddock's  Field  for  the  purpose  of  inflaming 
the  passions  of  the  troops,  had  already  hastened  to  escape 
the  vengeance  which  otherwise  would  probably  have  been 
wreaked  upon  them. 

The  President,  on  hearing  of  the  forcible  resistance  the 
marshal  and  Neville  had  encountered,  determined  to  enforce 
the  laws  with  vigor.  All  of  the  cabinet  concurring,  except 
Randolph,  whose  indecision  of  character  became  at  this  crisis 
painfully  evident,  a  proclamation  was  issued  upon  A^  ? 
the  proper  judicial  certificate  showing  that  process 
was  resisted  by  combinations  too  powerful  for  the  courts  to 
suppress,  which  commanded  the  insurgents  to  disperse;  and 
requisitions  were  further  made  upon  the  governors  of  Penn 
sylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  New  Jersey,  for  15,000 
men  in  all.  Deferring,  however,  to  Governor  Mifflin  and  his 
own  Secretary  of  State,  Washington  did  not  call  the  troopg 


278  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

into  immediate  action,  but  tried  first  the  experiment  of  send 
ing  out  a  commission  to  the  insurgents,  with  instructions  for 
arranging  their  peaceable  submission.  Three  of  the  commis 
sioners  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  were  appointed  by 
the  President.  Governor  Mifflin  added  two  on  Pennsylvania's 
behalf.  Ross,  the  Senator  who  had  been  chosen  in  Gallatin's 
place,  Attorney-General  Bradford,  and  Chief  Justice  McKeau, 
of  Pennsylvania,  were  of  the  number. 

The  commissioners  arrived  soon  after  the  assembly  had 
taken  place  at  Parkinson's  Ferry,  whose  riotous  call  we  have 
doted.  In  a  grove  on  rising  ground,  overlooking  the  Monon- 
gahela,  226  delegates,  chiefly  from  the  Western 
Pennsylvania  counties  of  Washington,  Alleghany, 
Westmoreland,  and  Fayette,  convened  on  the  appointed  day; 
Ohio  County,  Virginia,  being  likewise  represented.  A  rude 
gallery  of  stumps  and  fallen  trees  partially  accommodated 
some  200  spectators,  gathered  from  interest  or  idle  curiosity. 
All  the  chief  actors  in  the  recent  tumults  were  present.  Cook, 
who  had  presided  at  the  militia  gathering  in  Braddock's 
Field,  was  chosen  chairman,  and  Gallatin  officiated  as  secre 
tary.  Bradford's  main  object  was,  with  Marshall  as  his  sec 
ond,  to  commit  this  convention  to  the  adoption  of  treasonable 
resolutions, artfully  drawn;  but  Gallatin,  with  whom  Judge 
Brackenridge,  a  man  of  literary  tastes  without  much  robust 
ness,  timidly  concurred,  gave  a  different  course  to  the  meet 
ing,  and  as  though  merely  to  protest  against  the  excise  laws. 
These  finally  carried  a  dissolution  of  the  assemblage,  after  a 
committee  of  sixty  had  been  chosen,  whose  sub-committee  of 
twelve  was  empowered  to  confer  with  the  approaching  com- 
missioners  from  the  President  and  Governor. 

Aug.  20-Sept.  11.  . 

jooth  committee  and  sub-committee  appeared 
disposed  to  submit  peaceably  to  the  government,  desiring  by 
no  means  to  carry  their  protest  against  obnoxious  acts  to  the 
point  of  open  disloyalty;  but  Bradford's  violent  minority  so 
wrought  upon  the  nerves  of  the  non-resistants  among  these 
Western  inhabitants,  that  in  the  short  time  allowed  by  the 
commissioners  for  the  people  of  the  disaffected  counties  to 
sign  the  submission  which  they  brought  with  them,  only  a 


1794.  THE   WHISKEY   INSUREECTION.  279 

partial  and  incomplete  compliance  with  the  terms  of  amnesty 
offered  by  the  President  was  obtained.* 

The  commissioners  having  made  an  unfavorable  report  of 
their  visit  to  the  disaffected  counties,  Washington 

.  Sept.  24. 

once  more  admonished  the  insurgents  by  proclama 
tion  ordering  out  the  troops  for  action.  The  militia  of  the 
States  called  upon  to  furnish  quotas  had  responded  with  great 
alacrity,  field  officers  turning  into  the  ranks,  and  men  of  for 
tune  shouldering  their  knapsacks  by  day,  and  sleeping  at 
night  on  straw,  each  under  his  single  blanket.  Three  gov 
ernors  appeared  at  the  head  of  their  several  State  detach 
ments,  and  the  Maryland  troops  were  commanded  by  Samuel 
Smith,  an  eminent  member  of  Congress,  of  moderate  politics, 
who  had  been  a  brigadier-general  in  the  Revolution.  Under 
the  authority  of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature,  convened  in 
special  session,  Miffliu  had  recruited  his  regiments  with  great 
spirit  and  energy,  as  if  to  repel  all  suspicion  of  disaffection, 
and  now  headed  them  in  person.  To  Governor  Harry  Lee, 
of  Virginia,  Washington  intrusted  the  general  command  of 
this  expedition  into  the  insurgent  counties,  not  without  con 
ducting  the  forces  himself  as  far  as  Bedford.  The 
Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  troops  formed  the 
right  wing,  and  those  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  the  left. 
Hamilton,  upon  his  earnest  solicitation,  was  permitted  to  ac 
company  the  expedition  all  the  way  to  Pittsburg. 

Rebellion,  however,  had  been  crushed  before  this  powerful 
array  reached  its  destination  ;  for  new  conventions 
at  Parkinson's  Ferry  pledged  the  submission  of  the 


*  All  of  the  sub-committee,  except  Bradford,  favored  submission  to 
the  commissioner!?.  While  Bradford's  speech  afterwards,  before  the 
committee  of  sixty,  plainly  proposed  a  treasonable  course,  Gal  latin  led 
the  members  as  their  secret  wishes  inclined,  at  the  risk  of  his  life. 
And  yet  the  general  hesitation  to  vote  upon  this  vital  question  proved 
such  that  the  expedient  applied  for  testing'  their  sense  was  that  the  sec 
retary  should  write  "yea"  and  "  nay  "  on  sixty  scraps  of  paper  and 
distribute  them.  The  votes  were  collected  in  a  hat,  each  man  conceal 
ing  his  ballot  and  destroying  the  part  of  the  paper  he  retained.  A 
count  of  the  tickets  thus  obtained  showed  34  for  submission  and  23 
against  it.  Adams's  Gallatin,  137. 


280  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

people  they  represented ;  notwithstanding  which  news  the 
troops  continued  their  advance.  Over  the  Alleghanies  they 
made  their  toilsome  way,  just  after  a  heavy  rain, 
wading  knee-deep  in  mud.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  blue  barriers  they  found  neither  militia  nor  mob  to  oppose 
them.  Bradford,  whose  guilt  was  conclusive,  was  making 
his  rapid  escape  down  the  Ohio.  Other  ringleaders  in  the  late 
violence  had  fled.  The  inhabitants  of  the  western  counties, 
now  repentant  and  gladly  submissive,  availed  themselves  to 
the  utmost  of  the  President's  generous  terms  of  amnesty,  and 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  as  Lee  required  them  to.  Ham 
ilton  investigated  the  whole  business,  and  some  arrests  were 
made,  but  as  the  leading  culprits  had  already  disappeared  a 
government  prosecution  could  avail  little.  Of  the  few  tried 
for  treason  none  were  convicted,  and  the  President,  still  ex 
ercising  great  clemency  and  forbearance,  pardoned  two  who 
were  found  guilty,  the  one  of  arson  and  the  other  of  mail 
robbery,  and  who  must  else  have  suffered  the  death  penalty. 
A  detachment  was  left  in  the  disaffected  region  of  Western 
Pennsylvania  during  the  winter,  under  command  of  the  vet 
eran  General  Morgan,  but  no  further  disturbances  occurred.* 
(2.)  Of  Wayne's  victory  over  the  Northwestern  Indians, 
the  good  news  reached  Lee's  volunteers  to  cheer  them  while 
they  were  toiling  over  the  mountains.  The  Blacksnake,  as 
the  Indians  had  come  to  call  our  commanding-general,  cer 
tainly  conducted  his  Western  campaigns  with  the  utmost 
prudence,  profiting  by  his  predecessor's  bitter  experience. 
While  the  little  Western  army,  in  1793,  was  being  slowly  re 
cruited  and  drilled,  the  President  had  sent  commissioners  to 
the  Indians  for  the  purpose  of  friendly  negotiations ;  but  every 
effort  failed  to  draw  the  savages  from  their  resolve  to  consider 
the  Ohio  River  as  their  southern  boundary  line,  without 
whose  concession  on  our  part  peace  and  a  treaty  were  impos- 

*  For  full  accounts  of  tins  insurrection  see  Works  of  Flndlay  and 
Brackenridge,  actors  who  played  here  no  very  discreditable  part.  The 
former  writes,  however,  in  a  vindictive  strain.  See  also  Adams's  Life 
of  Gallatin,  which  furnishes  some  fresh  incidents ;  4  Hildreth ;  5  Ham 
ilton's  Republic. 


1794.  WAYNE'S  VICTORY.  281 

sible.     Making  Pittsburg  his  first  rendezvous  in  1792,  and 
thence,  in  1793,  proceeding  gradually,  by  way  of  Fort  Wash 
ington  or  Cincinnati,  into  the  Indian  country,  over  the  route 
Harmar  and  St.  Clair  had  traversed  before  him,  skirmish 
ing  on  occasion,  and  setting  up  supply  posts  at  convenient 
points,  Wayne  gradually  wound  into  the  neighborhood  of  St. 
Glair's  melancholy  disaster.     At  the  present  site  of  Green 
ville  his  main  army  wintered  in  log  huts,  an  advance  detach 
ment  occupying  the  old  battle-ground  and  building  a  stockade, 
which  was  named  Fort  Recovery.     From  this  fort, 
which  the  Indians  had  meantime  assaulted  in  vain, 
Wayne,  now  materially  strengthened  by  a  reinforcement  which 
arrived,  consisting  of  about  1100  mounted  volunteers 
from  Kentucky,  his  own  force,  after  deducting  those 
in  garrison,  not  greatly  exceeding  2000  effective  men,  stealth 
ily  advanced   in   midsummer,   1794,   to  the  junction  of  the 
rivers  Au  Glaize  and  Mauraee.     Here  he  built  another  stock 
ade  fort,  which,  as  if  to  disclose  his  new  aggressiveness  of  pur 
pose,  he  called  Fort  Defiance.     The  Indians,  flee 
ing  at  his  approach,  found  themselves  now  cut  off 
from  the  richest  emporium  of  their  whole  country,  where  for 
miles  appeared  one  continuous  village,  with  yellow  cornfields 
ripe  for  the  harvest.     Little  Turtle  and  his  forces  at  length 
encamped  at  the  foot  of  the  Maumee  rapids,  near  a  British 
fort,  which  had  been  built  in  utter  disregard  of  the  treaty  of 
1783,  fifty  miles  within  our  established   boundary  line,  and 
whence,  it  is  most  probable,  the  Indians  had  hitherto  pro 
cured  both  fighting  men  and  supplies  for  this  protracted  war. 
Having  first  reconnoitred  to  ascertain  the  enemy's  strength, 
and   receiving  favorable  reports,   Wayne  now  made  a  final 
effort  to  detach  the  Indians  from  their  British  advisers,  and  to 
negotiate  a  treaty  with  them  on  admissible  terms ;  but,  con 
trary  to  the  counsel  of  Little  Turtle,  who  had  come  to  fear 
"  the  chief  that  never  slept,"  they  sent  back  a  haughty  an 
swer.    Hereupon  Wayne  advanced  and  gave  battle. 
A  gallant  charge  of  our  troops,  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  started  the  savages  from  their  covert  of  fallen  tim 
ber,  and  after  a  short  and  spirited  action  they,  together  with 
VOL.  i.— 24 


282  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

their  ill-disguised  British  and  Canadian  allies,*  were  driven 
with  great  slaughter  close  up  to  the  British  fort,  whose  guns 
maintained  a  prudent  silence. 

For  three  days  after  this  engagement  the  victorious  Amer 
ican  army  ravaged  this  beautiful  Indian  country,  destroying 
crops  and  log  huts,  and  committing  to  the  flames,  besides,  the 
storehouses  of  the  British  trading  agent,  which  were  built 
here.  Wayne  then  fell  back  to  Fort  Defiance,  and  after  con 
structing  Fort  "Wayne  at  the  head  of  the  Maumee, 

Sept  -Oct 

retired  into  winter  quarters  at  Fort  Greenville,  leav 
ing  his  new  advance  posts  well  garrisoned. 

Wayne's  victory,  we  may  here  add,  brought  the  stubborn 
Indian  war  in  this  region  to  a  close,  and  presently  opened  the 
whole  country  north  of  the  Ohio  to  a  prosperous  settlement. 
All  the  succeeding  winter  came  Indian  deputations  to  Fort 
Greenville  suing  for  peace,  and  by  a  general  treaty, 
signed  in  the  summer  of  1795,  the  pacification  of 
the  Northwestern  tribes  was  completed  by  a  surrender  of  ter 
ritorial  claims  on  their  part  as  far  westward  as  the  Wabash. 
A  general  exchange  of  white  and  Indian  captives  also  took 
place.  Wives  and  husbands  were  reunited,  who  for  years  had 
been  separated,  and  Kentucky  parents  welcomed  to  their 
hearthstones  children  who  had  grown  up  among  savages,  igno 
rant  of  their  native  tongue  and  civilized  manners. 

Such  was  the  closing  triumph  of  a  brave  and  discreet  rev 
olutionary  general,  whose  traditionary  fame  is  rather  that  of  a 
hare-brained  hero.  Wayne  died  in  1796.  This  happy  peace 
and  permanent  tranquillity,  which  his  good  conduct  chiefly 
accomplished,  were  hastened  and  secured,  no  doubt,  by  the 
removal  of  that  external  British  pressure  which  for  years  had 
been  secretly  exerted  upon  these  simple  natives  to  the  preju 
dice  of  the  United  States.  The  Jay  negotiation,  to  which  we 
shall  presently  recur,  brought  about  the  long-delayed  surren 
der  of  the  Northwestern/fSosts,  which  was  promised  in  1783, 

*  In  this  contest,  and  that  of  June,  at  Fort  Recovery,  white  men 
were  seen  fighting  on  the  Indian  side,  some  with  painted  faces.  It  was 
readily  conjectured  whence  they  were  procured. 


1794.  SELF-CREATED   SOCIETIES.  283 

and  left  our  government  sovereign,  in  fact,  as  well  as  name, 
within  its  rightful  jurisdiction.* 

Washington  had  returned  to  Philadelphia,  leaving  the  mi 
litia  marching  into  Western  Pennsylvania,  in  order  to  meet 
Congress  on  its  reassembling.  But  no  quorum  of  the 
two  Houses  appeared  on  the  day  appointed,  nor  un 
til  November  18th.  In  the  President's  opening  message  of 
the  next  day,  which  recited  the  events  of  the  insurrection  as 
they  had  thus  far  transpired,  appeared  for  the  first  time  a 
political  censure  in  the  shape  of  his  official  rebuke  of  the 
democratic  societies  which  Genet  had  instituted  in  imitation 
of  the  Jacobin  clubs  of  his  own  country.  These  "self-created 
societies, "f  as  Washington  now  styled  them,  which  had  fo 
mented  injurious  suspicions  against  the  government,  by  igno- 
rantly  or  wilfully  perverting  the  facts,  fostered  undoubtedly 
the  Pennsylvania  insurrection,  and  Washington  meant  that 
the  country  should  countenance  them  no  longer.  His  censure 
at  this  time  was  sufficient  to  sink  them  into  contempt.  One 
need  not  in  our  day  contend  that  clubs  organized  in  a  free 
country  to  disseminate  political  principles  may  be  rightfully 
self-created,  or  that  the  main  inquiry  should  be,  where  men 
associate  to  promote  certain  objects,  not  the  manner  of  crea 
tion,  but  what  are  those  objects,  who  are  the  men  professing 
them,  and  how  are  the  principles  carried  out.  Neither  in  men 
nor  principles,  nor  again,  in  the  manner  of  enforcement,  were 
these  democratic  clubs  of  Washington's  day  worthy  of  confi 
dence.  Organized  directly  in  a  foreign  and  French  interest, 
they  had  constantly  embarrassed  the  administration  by  an 
indiscreet  and  heedless,  though  perhaps  well-meant,  inter 
ference  with  public  measures  in  the  course  of  their  lawful  exe 
cution,  encouraging  a  direct  popular  opposition  to  authority, 
instead  of  working  through  such  proper  intermediate  chan 
nels  as  the  ballot-box  and  the  vote  of  their  representatives  in 

*  A  graphic  portrayal  of  Wayne's  campaign  will  be  found  in  Los- 
sing's  War  of  1812.  And  see  Wayne's  Official  Reports  ;  4  llildreth. 

f  The  phrase,  "  self-created  societies,"  could  not  have  originated  in 
this  message,  for  such  a  stigma  was  applied  in  the  public  prints  to  these 
clubs  a  year  earlier.  See  e.  g.  Boston  Centinel,  December,  1793. 


284  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Congress ;  their  methods  were  revolutionary  and  foreign  ;  one, 
at  least,  of  them*  affiliated  with  Jacobin  clubs  in  Paris;  and 
their  whole  toue  tended  to  that  public  insubordination  for 
which  France  was  sufficiently  punished.  The  Democratic 
society  of  Philadelphia,  though  outwardly  disapproving  a 
violent  resistance  to  the  excise,  had  really  encouraged  it  by 
condemning  the  law  which  the  rioters  resisted,  as  though  an 
Executive  was  not  bound  by  his  oath  to  enforce  it. 

All  this  din  and  swirl,  however,  of  political  commotion, 
which  made  men's  heads  grow  dizzy  with  the  idea  of  living 
under  laws  they  need  not  respect,  followed  the  lifting  of  those 
national  sluice-gates,  through  which  rushed  the  popular  torrent 
for  the  first  time  into  the  new  basin  the  Constitution  had  pro 
vided  for  it.  For  the  wordy  abuse  and  overexcitement  of  all 
popular  political  turmoils,  our  later  statesmen  know  how  to 
make  abundant  allowance.  But  it  was  not  strange  that  so 
many  sage  counsellors  now  vested  with  authority,  accustomed 
as  they  had  been  to  public  expressions  in  the  milder  form  of 
resolutions  and  addresses  voted  in  town  and  county  meetings, 
should  have  regarded  with  mingled  emotions  of  disdain  and 
alarm  this  new  manifestation  of  mass  meetings  and  "  rabbles 
formed  into  clubs,"  exercising  a  censorship,  and  sought  to  ex 
clude  such  organisms  from  the  pale  which  already  protected 
abolition  societies  and  the  Cincinnati,  as  "self-created"  and 
exerting  a  certain  political  influence. 

Another  circumstance,  besides  Washington's  public  rebuke, 
hastened  the  decline  of  the  democratic  societies  in  America, 
namely,  the  downfall  of  Robespierre  in  France,  and  the 
French  Jacobin  clubs  with  him.  The  mad  progress  of  events 
in  that  country  might  well  check  the  confidence  in  republican 
experiments,  of  those  who  failed  to  consider  the  more  favor 
ing  conditions  which  attended  the  administration  of  a  popular 
government  in  America. 

In  the  strange  absence  of  a  prominent  foreign  issue  to  dis 
tract  opinion,  the  Republicans  felt  keenly  the  po- 

1/94— I/ 9o.     i  •    •       i  •  i  •    i  ••  *  i  i*  • 

htical  reaction  which  was  setting  in  sensibly  against 
them,  as  Democrats  and  Jacobins,  in  heart,  if  not  nominally 

*  At  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 


1794-95.  CONGRESSIONAL   QUIBBLES.  285 

The  Pennsylvania  folly  had  already  cost  them  votes  in  the 
fall  elections  which  they  could  ill  afford  to  lose.  It  was  in 
vain  that  they  now  tried  to  exculpate  their  party  from  an  in 
surrection  due,  as  they  declared,  to  local  causes  solely,  and  to 
disclaim  all  connection  with  the  clubs  denounced  in  the  Pres 
ident's  message.  As  the  spirits  fell  of  the  Republican  leaders 
in  Congress,  so  those  of  their  Federal  opponents  arose;  and  as 
under  such  circumstances  it  may  likely  happen  in  a  legisla 
ture  closely  divided,  the  present  session,  quite  in  contrast 
with  the  preceding  one,  was  given  over  for  the  most  part  to 
childish  quibbles,  and  word-play  over  resolutions  with  trap 
clauses.  The  Federalists  had  been  dubbed  "  rnonocrats;" 
they  now  retorted  upon  the  Republicans  with  the  not  inapt 
style  of  "mobocrats."  Democratic  clubs  had  been  instituted 
for  correcting,  as  they  professed,  the  designs  of  an  aristocracy, 
but  these  clubbists  were  now  pronounced  aristocrats  for  arro 
gating  to  their  set  a  special  right  to  criticise  public  measures. 
Inasmuch  as  the  Republicans  of  both  Houses,  for  self-justifi 
cation,  were  forced,  in  responding  to  the  President's  message, 
to  disapprove  the  excise  insurrection  and  commend  the  Exec 
utive  action  in  suppressing  it,  the  exultant  Federalists  strove 
that  the  response  in  each  House  should  go  so  far  as  literally 
to  condemn  with  him  "self-created  societies,"  but  only  the 
Senate  could  be  forced  to  swallow  this  unpalatable  phrase. 

But  while  this  Congressional  special  pleading  went  on,  the 
laugh  was  not  always  on  one  side.  For  while  naturalization* 
was  under  discussion  in  the  House,  Dexter,  Sedgwick,  and 
Smith  goaded  their  opponents  with  light  raillery  over  a  reason 
able  motion  made  by  Giles  to  the  effect  that  emigrants  should 
renounce  all  titles  of  nobility.  Dexter,  overtiushed  in  debate, 
after  some  smart  ridicule  of  Irish  priestcraft  and  the  folly  of 
asking  a  nobleman  to  renounce  his  title  any  more  than  com 
pelling  a  Jacobin  to  renounce  his  club,  offered  an  irritating 
amendment  requiring  applicants  for  citizenship  to  renounce, 
likewise,  the  right  to  hold  slaves.  Giles,  to  his  consternation, 

*  In  view  of  the  great  influx  of  emigrants  at  this  time  of  various  polit 
ical  creeds,  a  new  bill,  which  lengthened  moderately  the  term  of  residence 
preliminary  to  citizenship,  passed  this  session  by  general  consent.  Act 
January  29th,  1795,  c.  20. 


286  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

at  once  forced  a  yea  and  nay  vote  on  both  amendment  and 
the  original  motion,  whereupon  Dexter's  amendment  of  course 
was  lost  and  Giles's  motion  carried  by  a  large  majority.  Dex 
ter,  caught  in  his  own  trap,  chose  to  place  himself  on  record 
against  Gites's  motion  and  the  renunciation  of  titles  rather 
than  confess  he  was  only  jesting ;  and  in  the  close  canvass 
then  going  on  in  his  district  a  most  liberal  and  talented  Feder 
alist  lost  his  re-election. 

The  chief  act  of  the  present  session,  and  as  Federalists 
claimed  it,  the  crown  of  their  financial  measures,  was  that 
which  made  fast  the  funding  system  ;  by  transferring  the  en 
tire  charge  of  the  public  debt  from  the  Treasury  Department 
to  commissioners  of  the  sinking  fund,  and  appropriating,  also, 
the  surplus  revenues  for  interest  payments  and  the  gradual 
redemption  of  the  principal.  In  promotion  of  this  end,  impost 
was  declared  a  permanent  revenue,  but  not  so  the  excise,  whose 
continuance,  as  Hamilton,  against  the  wishes  of  other  Federalists, 
had  counselled,  was  limited  to  the  year  1801.  The  public  debt 
now  stood  at  something  like  $76,000,000,  added  to  which  were 
$5,000,000  in  temporary  loans.  The  President's  opening  mes 
sage  had  taken  decided  ground  in  favor  of  plans  for  a  gradual 
reduction,  urging  measures  "  to  prevent  that  progress! veuess 
of  debt  which  must  ultimately  endanger  all  governments,"* 

Before  the  Treasury  Department  was  thus  shorn  of  influ 
ence,  Hamilton  had  retired  from  office.  The  date  of  his  in 
tended  resignation,  postponed  long  enough  to  ascertain  for 
himself  how  Jay's  mission  would  turn  out,  he  fixed,  soon  after 
returning  from  the  march  to  Pittsburg,  at  the  last  day  of 
January  ;  notifying  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  his  intention 
two  months  earlier,  for  the  purpose  of  challenging,  if  Congress 
so  required,  a  further  investigation  into  his  official  conduct. 
No  such  investigation,  however,  was  ordered  or  desired,  and 
Washington's  farewell  letter  gave  assurance  of  his  own 
satisfaction  that  his  confidence  in  the  Secretary's  talents,  ex 
ertions  and  integrity  had  been  well  placed.  Hamilton  retired 
from  office  without  a  fortune,  a  circumstance  highly  honorable, 
of  which  his  friends  now  made  no  little  vaunt  for  political 


Annals  of  Congress ;  Act  March  3d,  1795. 


1795.  HAMILTON    RETIRES.  287 

effect.  Certainly  avarice  had  never  been  one  of  the  Secretary's 
failings,  and  yet  leaving  public  life  less  than  forty  years  old, 
after  so  impressive  an  administration  of  Hie  Federal  Treasury, 
he  had  the  most  opulent  and  generous  professional  clients  in 
America  at  his  command,  and  needed  only  to  apply  himself 
for  a  few  years  to  the  vast  interests  of  the  merchants  ana 
financiers  he  had  already  placed  under  personal  obligations, 
and  who  now  crowded  about  him,  to  become  the  wealthiest 
practitioner  at  the  American  bar.  Thus,  too,  he  might  have 
overcome  that  popular  odium  which  stung  him  while  he  was 
provoking  it,  and  for  which  a  temporary  seclusion  promised  the 
surest  cure.  But  to  Hamilton  this  leaving  the  cabinet  meant 
only  to  shift  his  position  while  he  regulated  the  gauge-cocks 
of  government  and  his  party  much  as  before,  like  one  who 
dared  not  trust  affairs  to  a  successor,  and  all  the  more  surely 
would  fail  to  ascend  higher.  What  confirmed  him,  perhaps, 
in  this  course  was,  that  his  successor  in  the  treasury  was  one 
who  had  risen  from  a  subordinate  position  by  his  favor,  and 
who  would  undoubtedly  both  listen  to  his  advice  and  feel 
predisposed  to  follow  it.  Hamilton  had,  for  the  six  mouths 
preceding  his  departure,  absorbed,  indeed,  nearly  all  the  de 
partment  functions  under  the  administration;  and  his  present 
delegation  of  the  offices  seems  to  have  been  with  the  mental 
reservation  of  supplying  still  to  his  department  successors  the 
needful  pabulum  for  the  President  to  ruminate  upon.* 

Knox  left  the  War  Department  about  the  same  time  with 
Hamilton,  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  private  concerns,  par- 

*  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  no  confidence  in  Randolph,  and 
hence  had  interfered  both  with  the  President  and  Jay  himself  (though 
Washington  held  to  his  own  coarse),  concerning  Jay's  instructions.  lie 
was  strenuous  to  have  the  "  contraband  "  defence  of  the  British  corn 
orders  admitted,  and  earnestly  seconded  Hammond  in  trying  to  have 
compensation  tendered,  through  Jay,  for  the  British  vessels  captured  by 
Genet's  privateers.  He  had  officiated  as  Secretary  of  War,  during  Knox's 
late  absence,  in  directing  the  expedition  against  the  insurrectionists  of 
Western  Pennsylvania,  and  he  then  accompanied  it,  distrusting,  as  his 
letters  showed,  both  Mifflin's  honor  and  Lee's  discretion.  By  Hamil 
ton  Knox  was  styled  "poor  Knox."  The  ill  health  of  Bradford,  the 
Attorney-General,  had  prevented  that  excellent  cabinet  officer  from  in 
fluencing  affairs  to  any  great  extent. 


288  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

ticularly  his  land  speculations.  This  officer  deserved  well  of 
the  country  he  had  long  and  faithfully  served,  and  yet  such 
had  been  his  constant  deference  to  his  brilliant  associate  in 
cabinet  meetings,  that  it  was  now  said,  not  without  a  touch  of 
punning  paradox,  that  Knox  followed  Hamilton  "as  the 
shadow  the  substance."  His  intention  of  resigning  having 
been  intimated  early  in  1794,  Washington  tendered  the  war 
department  to  Charles  C.  Pinckney,  who  declined  it.  Pick 
ering  was  now  transferred  to  the  place  from  the  Postmaster- 
Generalship,  while  Oliver  Wolcott,  of  Connecticut,  the  indus 
trious  Comptroller,  was,  on  Hamilton's  recommendation, 
promoted  to  the  responsible  head  of  the  Treasury. 

Jefferson,  from  his  distant  seclusion,  viewed  uneasily  the 
tameness  of  his  party  friends  in  Congress,  though  devoting 
himself,  as  yet,  more  closely  to  experimenting  with  clover  and 
potatoes  than  the  rotations  of  politics.  Stories  of  his  disaffection 
to  the  administration  had  been  whispered  in  the  summer  to 
Washington,  whose  characteristic  response  was  to  tender,  in 
assurance  of  his  own  uudiminished  confidence,  a  special  mission 
to  Madrid,  which  Jefferson,  acknowledging  the  delicate  act, 
declined  to  accept.*  Against  the  President's  denunciation  of 
self-created  societies,  nevertheless,  Jefferson  inveighed  bitterly, 
and  he  ridiculed  the  militia  demonstration  against  Western 
Pennsylvania  as  a  costly  display  of  force  upon  insufficient 
provocation.  "  The  excise  law  is  an  infernal  one,"  he  queru 
lously  complained.  Here,  as  in  the  Shays  rebellion,  to  which 
in  several  points  the  whiskey  insurrection  may  be  thought  to 
correspond,  Jefferson's  sympathy  with  the  distressed,  while 
too  far  off  to  study  the  true  merits  of  the  situation,  blinded 
him  to  the  lawlessness  of  their  conduct,  which  had  left,  in  either 
case,  a  prudent  executive  with  no  choice  but  to  enforce  the 
authority  of  government  at  all  hazards.  Had  Jefferson  been 
present  at  Philadelphia  with  a  share  of  the  executive  respon- 

*  See  6  J.  C.  Ham.  Rep.,  85-88,  bringing  to  light  Randolph's  letter 
of  August  28th,  on  file  in  the  Department  of  State,  which  elicited  Jeffer 
son's  reply,  published  in  his  correspondence,  September  7th,  1794.  Mr. 
Randall  (Jefferson's  admirable  biographer),  and  others  who  had  read 
only  this  reply,  supposed,  erroneously,  that  a  cabinet  position  was  here 
tendered  and  refused. 


1795.  JAY'S  MISSION.  289 

sibility  on  his  own  shoulders,  it  is  not  likely  he  would  have 
dealt  better  or  differently  by  the  insurgents  than  the  President 
did.  The  best  men  of  his  own  party  in  Congress  sanctioned 
the  course  Washington  had  taken,  and  disavowed  responsi 
bility  for  the  tumults  that  had  arisen. 

SECTION  II. 

PERIOD    OF    FOURTH   CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1795-MARCH  3,  1797. 

PUBLIC  attention  turns  now  to  Jay,  and  to  the  progress 
and  results  of  his  important  mission.  The  President  had 
taken  a  hazardous  responsibility  in  sending  to  London  unin 
vited,  an  envoy  extraordinary,  whose  rejection  must  have 
compelled  Congress  to  declare  war,  and  it  was  chiefly  t6  re 
duce  the  issue  to  this  point  with  England  that  he  did  so. 
But  the  manner  of  Jay's  reception  soon  relieved  him 
of  the  worst  anxiety.  Reaching  London  in  early 
June,  the  American  envoy  was  not  only  officially  recognized 
but  welcomed  with  hospitality.  Pitt  promptly  accorded  him  a 
private  interview  at  Downing  Street,  and  vied  with  the  Lord 
Chancellor  in  social  civilities.  Jay  dined  with  Lord  Greu- 
ville  shortly  after  his  arrival,  and  found  the  cabinet  ministers 
present ;  not,  however,  a  single  foreigner.  The  King  himself 
was  gracious,  in  his  abrupt  way,  as  never  before  to  an  Amer 
ican  ambassador.  "  Well,  sir,"  he  presently  accosted  Jay  at 
the  drawing-room,  nodding  and  smiling,  "I  imagine  you  begin 
to  see  that  your  mission  will  probably  be  successful."* 

At  this  time  Great  Britain  rejoiced  over  a  naval  victory 
Lord  Howe  had  just  achieved,  arid  the  war  with  France  was 
immensely  popular  among  the  influential  classes.  With  real 
or  assumed  frankness,  the  ministry  now  gave  Jay  to  under 
stand  that  secret  measures  had  in  fact  been  taken  against  the 
United  States  formerly,  under  an  impression,  heightened  by 
the  manner  of  Genet's  reception  and  the  popular  language 
of  America,  that  the  United  States  was  preparing  to  ally  with 
France  against  Great  Britain  ;  but,  they  added,  as  the  Presi- 

*  2  John  Jay's  Life. 
VOL.  i. — 25 


290  HISTORY  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

dent's  policy  developed,  this  impression  was  removed,  and 
these  measures  were  abandoned  on  their  part.  Neutrality  on 
our  part  appears  not  to  have  been  desired,  for  at  a  public 
dinner  given  by  London  merchants  in  the  American  trade, 
the  bait  of  a  British  alliance  was  thrown  out  adroitly  to  their 
distinguished  guest,  but  Jay  perceived  the  hook  and  avoided 
it.*  Accepting  Jay's  mission,  however,  as  Jay  properly  con 
strued  it,  Grenville,  who  was  not  a  diplomatist  to  venture 
beyond  his  depth,  now  set  himself  to  negotiating  a  treaty, 
which,  abandoning  the  thought  of  a  political  connection 
between  the  two  countries,  should,  notwithstanding,  place 
Great  Britain  as  advantageously  with  the  United  States  as 
France,  and  more  so  if  possible,  avert  the  threatened  war,  and 
while  yielding  as  little  as  possible,  gain  in  return  some  conces 
sions  which  recent  events  had  shown  were  most  desirable.  By 
the  latter  part  of  November,  Jay  wrote  to  the  President  and 
to  his  personal  friends  that  a  treaty  had  been  arranged  which 
would  at  once  be  forwarded  to  America  by  packet. 

For  some  unexplained  reason  the  voyage  was  greatly  delayed, 

so  that  the  document  did  not  arrive  until  four  days 

after  the  close  of  Congress,  its  provisions   having 

meanwhile  been  kept  by  Jay  profoundly  secret.      Without 

even  showing  the  paper  to  his  cabinet  advisers,  except  perhaps 

Randolph,    Washington    convened    the   Senate   in 

June  8.  '.  ii'i  i     . 

extra  session  and  submitted    the  treaty  for  their 
consideration  under  an  injunction  of  continued  secrecy. 

This  treaty,  which  Grenville  and  John  Jay  had  executed 
together,  consisted  of  twenty-eight  articles  in  all,  the  last  of  which 
related  merely  to  ratification.  The  first  ten  articles  were  de 
signed  to  be  permanent ;  the  others  constituted  in  effect  a  com 
mercial  convention,  having  only  a  temporary  continuance,  or 
during  the  existing  war  between  Great  Britain  and  France 
and  two  years  afterwards. 

;'  At  this  dinner  Jay  and  Pinckney  were  present.  The  President  of 
the  United  States  was  toasted  with  three  cheers,  prolonged  to  six. 
Almost  every  toast,  particularly  that  of  the  navy, — "  the  wooden  walls 
of  Old  England," — bore  a  cordial  reference  to  America.  But  when  Jay 
was  called  upon,  he  responded  with  a  neutral  sentiment:  "A  safe  and 
honorable  peace  to  all  the  belligerent  powers."  This  was  coldly  received 
by  the  company.  2  John  Jay's  Life. 


1795.  THE  JAY  TREATY.  291 

As  to  the  permanent  articles,  peace  and  friendship  were  de 
clared  established  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States ;  the  British  posts  were  to  be  evacuated  by  June,  179G  ; 
free  commercial  and  Indian  intercourse  on  the  American  Con 
tinent  was  mutually  promised,  leaving  the  Mississippi  River 
entirely  open  to  both  countries — a  permanent  concession  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  which  might,  under  some  con 
tingencies,  have  proved  very  troublesome.  On  account  of 
uncertainties  which  were  assumed  to  prevail  under  the  treaty 
of  1783,  as  touching  the  northern  boundary  of  the  United 
States,  they  were  redefined,  but  not  so  clearly  as  to  prevent  a 
recurrence  of  the  same  disputes  soon  afterwards.  The  Amer 
ican  government  was  to  compensate  Great  Britain  for  the 
confiscated  debts,  so  far  as  "lawful  impediments  since  the 
peace"  might  have  prevented  their  collection,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Great  Britain  promised  indemnity  to  American 
citizens  for  the  unlawful  captures  recently  made  of  American 
vessels.  Finally,  the  United  States  would  either  give  recom 
pense  or  -make  restitution  in  respect  of  certain  Genet  captures 
of  1793,  by  privateers  fitted  out  in  our  ports,  agreeably  to 
Jefferson's  letter  of  September  5th,  and  on  a  principle  of  re 
ciprocity  so  declared  (though  the  practical  advantages  were 
obviously  with  England),  it  was  agreed  that  alienage  should 
not  disqualify  from  holding  lands  in  either  country,  also,  that 
in  the  event  of  war,  debts  should  not  be  sequestered  or  con 
fiscated. 

Of  all  these  permanent  articles,  that  alone  which  gained  a 
real  advantage  for  this  country  was  the  important  one  relat 
ing  to  indemnifying,  through  a  commission,  the  spoliation  of 
American  commerce.  But,  by  way  of  offset,  America,  besides 
suffering  the  disadvantage  in  articles  which  professed  to  con 
fer  reciprocal  rights,  was  bound  to  assume  British  Tory  claims 
of  more  doubtful  legality.  The  promise  to  surrender  the 
Western  posts,  at  a  suspiciously  late  date,  which  this  treaty 
procured,  confirmed,  at  best,  an  existing  obligation  quite  as 
amply  guaranteed,  but  not  fulfilled.  No  recompense  was  af 
forded  to  American  citizens  for  the  negroes  carried  off  by  the 
British  commanders  at  the  end  of  the  Revolution,  in  violation 
of  the  treaty  of  1783,  a  claim  which  Jay,  as  an  abolitionist, 


292  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

no  doubt  regarded  with  little  heartiness.  Nothing,  moreover, 
was  here  accomplished  in  restraint  of  impressment  or  the 
British  right  of  search. 

The  temporary  articles  were  even  less  favorable  to  the 
United  States  than  the  permanent  ones.  So  desirable  was  it 
thought  to  procure  an  open  trade  for  America  with  the  Brit 
ish  West  Indies,  that  Jay's  instructions  precluded  him  from 
signing  any  treaty  of  commerce  that  did  not,  at  least,  grant 
such  a  trade  under  qualifications.  But  Grenville  was  strenu 
ous  against  yielding  the  right  at  all,  and  the  only  concession 
granted  by  Great  Britain,  on  this  point,  restricted  the  priv 
ilege  of  the  West  India  trade  to  American  vessels  of  70  tons, 
lading  their  cargoes  in  United  States  ports,  and  this  privilege 
was  clogged  further  with  the  inadmissible  condition  that  the 
United  States  should  carry  no  molasses,  sugar,  coffee,  cocoa, 
or  cotton  to  any  part  of  the  world,  while  British  vessels  be 
sides,  of  any  burden,  might  compete  in  our  West  India  trade 
unrestrained.  As  for  the  British  East  Indies,  United  States 
vessels  might  carry  their  products  thence  to  American  ports, 
but  not  so  as  to  coa^t  or  settle  there;  a  relaxation  of  British 
colonial  policy  which  was,  in  truth,  the  only  valuable  privi 
lege  of  the  temporary  sort  accorded.  The  United  States,  in 
return  for  so  paltry  a  favor,  opened  all  the  ports  she  controlled 
and  surrendered  her  own  commercial  advantages  in  the  exist 
ing  war  with  scarce  a  qualification  ;  permitting  reciprocal  trade 
between  the  European  ports  of  Great  Britain  and  our  own, 
on  the  footing  of  the  most  friendly  nation  (a  provision  which 
cut  awray  all  further  opportunity  for  applying  to  her  the  Mad 
ison  rule  of  discriminating  duties),  forbidding  all  foreign  en 
listments,  and  treating  citizens  who  should  accept  privateer 
commissions  as  pirates;  surrendering  all  right  of  reprisal  ex 
cept  upon  demand  and  refusal,  authorizing  ships  of  war  to  be 
received  in  one  another's  ports,  and  establishing  prize  regula 
tions  with  Great  Britain  in  abridgment  of  the  advantages 
hitherto  claimed  by  France,  whose  still  existing  treaty,  though 
recognized  in  terms  by  the  Jay  convention,  was  hampered 
offensively  and  denied  all  further  constructive  extension.  A 
modicum  of  justice  was  yielded  by  Grenville  in  respect  of 
blockade  seizures,  but  as  to  articles  contraband,  while  vessel 


1795.  THE   JAY    THEATY.  293 

equipments  were  enumerated  as  such,  Great  Britain  so  in 
clined  to  extend  her  claim  that  the  convention  would  not 
yield  the  American  non-contraband  doctrine  as  to  provisions, 
but  only  agreed  to  pay  and  not  confiscate  in  case  of  their 
seizure.  A  mutual  extradition  of  murderers  and  forgers  was 
provided. 

The  utmost  that  Jay  could  procure  in  respect  of  the  im 
pressment,  West  India  trade  and  other  matters  which  this 
treaty  either  ignored  or  dealt  stingily  with,  was  the  expres 
sion,  in  ambiguous  language,  that  other  terms,  not  specially 
embraced  in  this  treaty,  might  be  added  from  time  to  time 
hereafter;  a  totally  barren  suggestion,  as  it  proved,  for  no 
further  concession  was  procured  from  Great  Britain. 

No  rational  interpretation  of  such  a  treaty  can  leave  a  doubt 
in  candid  minds  that  this  government,  having  plain  griev 
ances  against  King  George,  yielded  all  the  favors  in  her 
power  to  bestow  for  the  sake  of  getting  these  grievances  re 
dressed  for  the  first  time,  and  only  just  far  enough  to  obviate 
the  necessity  of  immediate  war.  Jay,  the  representative  of 
the  aggrieved  country,  though  honorable  and  patriotic,  had 
always  been  a  timid  negotiator  on  America's  behalf,  and  on 
this  mission  he  was  so  painfully  conscious  that  a  dangerous 
contest  of  arms  would  follow  his  failure  to  make  terms  with 
the  aggressor,  that  he  most  likely  encouraged  the  less  scrupu 
lous  statesman  who  treated  with  him,  to  turn  the  opportunity 
to  England's  best  account,  by  obtaining  all  the  commercial 
advantages  for  the  European  struggle  she  wished  for  without 
undergoing  the  humiliation  of  asking  for  them,  and  paring 
the  claws  of  a  neutral  who  had  angrily  threatened  to  use 
them,  while  persuading  America  that  the  British  lion  was 
submitting  to  that  operation.  While  it  is  probable  that  Jay 
could  not  have  gained  more  for  his  country,  it  is  certain  he 
might  have  surrendered  less,  and  so  given  an  equally  pacific 
exit  to  his  mission. 

The  Senate,  in  which  body,  as  now  convoked,  the  Federalists 
appear  to  have  gained  slightly,  while  the  Republican 
minority  was  weaker  by  the  loss  of  so  bold  a  cham 
pion  as  Monroe,  concluded,  after  much  secret  debate,  that  the 
treaty  be  ratified ;  a  decision  reached,  however,  only  by  the 


294  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

bare  two-thirds  vote  which  the  Constitution  required,  and  so  as 
to  except  wholly  the  clause  which  related  to  the  West  India 
trade.  Over  that  clause  Jay  undoubtedly  blundered,  for,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  other  forbidden  articles,  cotton  was  an  ox- 
ported  product  of  our  Southern  States  (a  fact  of  which  Jay  was 
doubtless  unaware),  and  to  surrender  our  promising  native 
exports  in  consideration  of  so  dubious  a  colonial  trade,  was 
wholly  inadmissible.  It  intercepted,  too,  supplies  to  France, 
so  as  to  aggrieve  her.  The  Senate's  idea  appears  to  have  been 
in  ratifying  the  treaty,  that,  under  an  instrument  which  held 
out  such  hopes  of  future  amendment,  a  further  correspondence 
with  the  Pitt  ministry  might  rectify  an  error  seemingly 
mutual ;  but  this  hope  was  futile,  so  far  as  new  negotiation 
was  expected  to  result  in  substituting  other  conditions  more 
admissible  for  enjoying  the  desired  trade,  for  we  had  no  more 
valuable  privileges  to  confer  upon  Great  Britain.  In  fact  it 
was  many  years  after  America  had  fought  a  new  war  with 
George  III,  that  the  gates  of  the  British  West  Indies  were 
opened  to  American  vessels  at  all. 

The  secret  of  the  Jay  treaty  had  been  profoundly  kept  by 
all  admitted  into  it,  even  beyond  the  adjournment 
of  the  Senate.  But  outside  curiosity  was  intense ; 
nor  can  it  be  thought  strange,  so  strong  was  the  sense  of  in 
justice  on  our  part,  if  a  too  sanguine  public  expectation 
framed  an  imaginary  treaty,  which  yielded  all  the  commercial 
rights  America  had  asked  for,  and  made  ample  reparation  for 
every  injury.  Washington,  impressed  with  the  importance  of 
preventing  a  war,  which  the  rejection  of  these  negotiations 
rendered  likely,  had  intended  to  ratify  the  treaty  apparently, 
should  the  Senate  so  advise,  but  he  was  now  embarrassed  by 
this  reservation  of  the  West  India  clause,  which  raised  some 
technical  questions  as  to  the  constitutional  "advice  and  con 
sent"  required  of  that  body.  And  a  second  perplexity  had 
arisen,  far  more  serious;  for  during  the  Senate  session  came 
intelligence  from  abroad  that,  profiting  by  the  present  scarcity 
of  provisions  in  France,  whither  nearly  all  our  last  year's 
grain  harvest  was  destined,  the  British  ministry  had  renewed 
their  former  offensive  order  as  to  seizing  provision  vessels,  so 
that  immediate  ratification  on  his  part  might  be  interpreted 


1795.  THE   JAY   TREATY.  295 

into  a  virtual  surrender  of  the  American  view  held,  not  with 
out  strong  support  from  international  jurists,  on  a  delicate  issue 
which  the  treaty  itself  had  not  assumed  to  decide. 

Incorrect  and  imperfect  versions  of  the  English  negotiation 
had  recently  appeared  in  our  newspapers,  and  just  as  Wash 
ington  was  on  the  point  of  allowing  to  the  public  an  inspection 
of  the  authentic  document,  Bache's  paper  came  out  with  a  true 
copy  of  the  treaty  in  full,  which  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia 
(one  of  the  ten  who  voted  against  ratification),  had  furnished 
for  publication. 

The  news  swept  the  country  like  wildfire,  Republished  in 
all  the  other  leading  newspapers  of  the  Union,  the  treaty  made 
a  profound  popular  impression,  and  that  mostly  of  disappoint 
ment  and  disfavor.  A  town  meeting  in  Boston, 
attended  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  merchants  of 
the  place,  first  denounced  the  treaty  as  unworthy  of  ratification, 
and  agreed  to  memorialize  the  President  to  that  effect.  lu  New 
York  a  mass  gathering  was  next  called  for  a  similar  purpose, 
which  Hamilton  and  his  friends  tried  unwisely  to  capture  in 
the  Anglican  interest.  Hamilton  was  stoned  while  speaking 
in  aid  of  the  treaty,  and  after  the  treaty-men  had  been  com 
pelled  to  withdraw,  resolutions  of  opposition,  under  the  lead 
of  the  Livingston  family,  were  unanimously  passed.  Public 
meetings  followed  at  Philadelphia  and  Charleston  with  the 
like  object  of  remonstrance,  McKeau,  Muhlenberg,and  Dallas, 
taking  a  prominent  part  in  the  former,  and  John  Kutledge  and 
Gadsden  in  the  latter.  Most  of  these  demonstrations  had 
riotous  accompaniments,  such  as  burning  the  treaty  before  the 
British  minister's  house,  trailing  the  British  flag,  and  destroy 
ing  Jay  in  effigy. 

Amid  the  general  execration,  Jay  suffered  the  popular  pen 
alty,  usual  with  American  statesmen,  of  having  his  motives 
foully  aspersed.  At  Philadelphia  a  transparency  was  borne  in 
procession,  with  a  figure  of  the  Chief  Justice  in  his  long  robe  ; 
his  right  hand  held  .a  balance,  one  scale  of  which  inscribed 
"American  liberty  and  independence  "  kicked  the  beam,  while 
"  British  gold"  bore  down  the  other  ;  his  left  hand  extended 
the  treaty  scroll  towards  a  group  of  Senators.  From  his  mouth 


296  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.        CHAP.  ITT. 

proceeded  the  words,  "  Come  up  to  my  price,  and  T  will  sell 
you  ray  country."  This  effigy  was  burned  at  Kensington. 

The  gray-haired  sires  of  the  Revolution  were  brought  out  in 
these  public  demonstrations  as  well  as  party  Republicans,  and 
French  and  Irish  immigrants,  persons  by  no  means  disinterested 
in  fanning  this  anti-Britain  rage.  Of  the  first-named  person 
ages,  the  venerable  John  Rutledge  made  himself  strangely  con 
spicuous  at  Charleston,  by  a  violent  harangue,  in  which  he 
charged  Jay  with  being  either  a  fool  or  a  knave.  This  was 
strange  language,  considering  that  Rutledge  had  just  accepted 
from  the  President  the  appointment  of  Chief  Justice  as  the 
successor  to  Jay,  since  the  latter,  chosen  Governor  of  New 
York  in  his  absence  by  a  large  majority,*  reached  his  native 
shore  again  the  last  of  May,  to  resign  all  Federal  station. 
Doubts  were  raised  of  the  sanity  of  Rutledge,  and  his  inju 
dicious  speech  eventually  caused  the  Senate  to  refuse  to  con 
firm  his  appointment  at  the  next  regular  session,  a  mortifica 
tion  which  Rutledge  did  not  long  survive. 

Randolph  meantime  was  working  very  hard,  though  diplo 
matically,  to  defeat  the  treaty  at  this  final  stage  of 
ratification,  by  strengthening  all  the  President's 
scruples  concerning  the  Senate's  provisional  approval,  and 
trying  to  induce  him  to  withhold  his  signature  until  the 
British  ministry  should  repeal  the  provision  order.  Even 
Hamilton,  to  whom  the  President  turned  in  confidence  for  an 
analysis  and  summary  of  the  arguments  upon  the  treaty,  ad 
vised  him,  while  signing,  to  instruct  Pinckney  not  to  exchange 
the  final  ratifications  while  this  state  of  things  lasted.  All  the 
cabinet,  as  well  as  Hamilton,  agreed  that  a  remonstrance  to 
Great  Britain  was  proper,  and  this  the  Secretary  of  State  was 
ordered  to  prepare,  while  Washington  absented  himself  upon 
unexpected  business  at  Mount  Vernon. 

Washington's  sudden  departure  from  Philadelphia,  left  the 
course  he  would  finally  take  in  some  doubt ;  nor  indeed  is  it 

*  Yates  was  his  opponent,  Clinton  having  declined  to  run  again  for 
the  office.  Of  course  Jay's  election  was  in  ignorance  of  the  contents  of 
this  treaty,  and  as  a  vindication  of  the  candidate  who  had  been  kept  out 
by  technicalities  at  the  last  choice,  from  his  rightful  office,  his  election 
was  all  the  surer.  See  supra,  p.  213. 


1795.  KANDOLPH'S  STRANGE  CONDUCT.  207 

likely  he  had  yet  made  up  his  mind  upon  ratification',  while 
protests  were  coming  in  from  all  parts  of  the  country  against  it. 
The  strange  delay  of  the  Secretary  of  State  in  preparing  the 
remonstrance,  and  his  baffling  reserve  provoked  his  new  col 
leagues,  Wolcott  and  Pickering,  who  in  the  course  of  confer 
ences  with  Hamilton,  had  come  to  believe,  as  they  earnestly 
hoped,  that  the  treaty  was  to  be  speedily  signed.  Randolph's^ 
bearing  indicated  that  the  treaty  would  be  dropped  if  Fran^e^ 
would  only  counterwork  with  sufficient  vigor.  The  British  fac 
tion  grew  nervous.  Public  meetings  called  to  tone  up  senti 
ment  in  favor  of  the  treaty,  worked  very  feebly,  and  ratification 
was  by  no  means  a  popular  cause. 

Wolcott,  at  this  juncture,  happening  to  dine  on  a  Sunday 
with  the  British  minister,  at  his  country  house,  Hammond 
placed  in  his  hands  an  intercepted  dispatch,  No.  10,  from  the 
French  minister  in  America,  M.  Fauchet,  who  had  just  been 
succeeded  by  Adet,  and  recalled  to  France.  It  affords  fair 
proof  of  the  uncertainties  which  now  attended  the  transmis 
sion  of  official  correspondence  between  America  and  the  belliger 
ent  nations,  as  well  as  the  uuscrupulousness  of  the  contending 
powers,  that  the  letter  had  been  thrown  overboard  together 
with  other  papers  from  a  French  packet  while  pursued  by  a 
British  man-of-war,  and  after  being  read  by  Grenville,  trans 
mitted  to  America  for  convenient  use.  This  dispatch,  which 
alluded  to  "  precious  confessions"  of  Secretary  Randolph,  and 
"overtures"  apparently  corrupt,  spoke  with  evident  contempt 
of  his  character  in  contrast  with  Monroe,  Madison,  and  Jefferson, 
and  referred  pointedly  to  a  former  dispatch,  No.  6,  from  Fau 
chet  to  his  government  for  particulars  of  Randolph's  conduct 
at  or  about  the  time  of  the  insurrection  in  Western  Pennsyl 
vania.*  Wolcott  showed  the  dispatch  to  his  cabinet  associates, 

*  This  dispatch  of  the  French  minister,  dated  October  31st,  1794,  was 
devoted  mainly  to  a  tirade  upon  American  politics,  and  what  he  conceived 
to  l)e  designs  of  Hamilton  and  his  party,  to  which  the  President,  himself 
an  honest  patriot,  was  blind.  Fauchet,  in  a  strain  of  disgust,  proceeds  : 
"Two  or  three  days  before  the  proclamation  (warning  the  insurgents) 
was  published,  and  of  course  before  the  cabinet  had  resolved  on  its  meas 
ures,  Mr.  Randolph  came  to  see  me  with  an  air  of  great  eagerness,  and 
made  to  me  the  overtures  of  which  I  have  given  an  account  in  my  No.  6. 
Thus  with  some  thousands  of  dollars,  the  republic  could  have  decided  on 


298  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Pickering  and  Bradford,  and  in  pursuance  of  a  clear  official 
duty,  with  whatever  alacrity  it  may  have  been  performed 
towards  an  uncongenial  associate,  they  urged  Washington  to 
return  at  once  to  Philadelphia. 

Arriving,  upon  this  mysterious  summons,  Washington  was 
shown  the  intercepted  French  dispatch.  He  at  once 
'  convened  the  cabinet,  as  though  nothing  especial  had 
occurred,  and  with  the  concurrence  of  all  his  advisers  except 
Randolph,  who  was  still  for  delay,  decided  upon  an  immediate 
ratification  of  the  treaty,  accompanied  by  a  strong  memorial 
against  the  provision  order.  Having  disposed  of  this  business, 
and  dispatched  the  documents  accordingly,  the 
President  next  summoned  Randolph  for  a  personal 
interview,  and  in  presence  of  both  Wolcott  and  Pickering, 
who  were  already  in  the  room,  handed  him  the  intercepted 
dispatch  of  Fauchet  to  read  it,  and  make  such  explanations  as 
he  chose.  Whether  only  humiliated  at  being  thus  confronted 
before  witnesses,  or  conscious  of  guilt,  Randolph  showed  him 
self  quite  disconcerted,  and  his  rambling  comments  upon  the 
dispatch  impressed  his  hostile  colleagues  quite  unfavorably. 
Washington  asked  him  to  step  into  an  adjoining  room  to  reflect 
by  himself  upon  his  response;  after  doing  which  Randolph 
concluded  to  submit  his  immediate  resignation,  while  at  the 
same  time  utterly  denying  in  writing,  that  he  had  received 
money  or  made  money  overtures,  such  as  the  letter  might  be 
thought  to  imply.  Professing  indignation,  moreover,  at  this 
sudden  withdrawal  of  his  chief's  personal  confidence,  he  prom 
ised,  nevertheless,  to  pursue  the  inquiry,  and  prepare  his  ex 
planation  at  length,  asking  that  the  dispatch  meanwhile  be 
kept  a  secret.  Washington's  response  to  this  was  fair  and 
considerate. 

Hastening  at  once  to  Newport,  whence  Fauchet  was  about 

civil  war  or  on  peace  !  Tims  the  consciences  of  the  pretended  patriots  of 
America  have  already  their  prices  !  It  is  very  true  that  the  certainty 
of  these  conclusions,  painful  to  be  drawn,  will  forever  exist  in  our 
archives." 

An  earlier  part  of  this  dispatch  speaks  of  Randolph's  "precious  con 
fessions  "  as  alone  throwing  "  a  satisfactory  light  upon  everything  which 
comes  to  pass." 


1795.  RANDOLPH'S  STRANGE  CONDUCT.  299 

to  sail  for  France,  Randolph  obtained  a  request  upon  Adet,  hia 
successor,  to  furnish  from  the  archives  of  the  French  legation  in 
America,  the  extract  from  dispatch  No.  6,  alluded  to  so  mysteri 
ously  in  the  intercepted  dispatch.*  Fauchet  himself  afterwards 
sent  a  circumstantial  letter,  which,  quite  out  of  harmony  with 
the  broader  insinuations  of  his  official  dispatches,  and  yet  vouch 
ing  nothing  as  to  Randolph's  personal  integrity,  framed  an 
hypothesis  for  the  whole  business  like  this :  that  Randolph's 
interview,  detailed  in  No.  6,  related  merely  to  saving  America 
from  civil  war  by  three  or  four  influential  flour  contractors 
who  had  it  in  their  power  to  procure  information  showing  that 
England  had  interfered  in  the  Western  troubles,  and  so  avert 
a  civil  war.  Fauchet  further  stated  in  this  letter,  that  he 
was  startled  at  understanding  Randolph  to  request  that  money 
due  these  men  on  their  contracts,  should  be  advanced  so  as  to 
put  them  in  funds  against  British  persecutions  to  which  they 
would  be  liable  in  case  they  made  the  revelation  ;  for  he  sup 
posed  the  American  Government  able  to  procure  its  own  infor 
mation  at  its  own  cost.  But  he  admitted  that  he  must  have 
misunderstood  Randolph's  propositions. 

The  authenticity  of  the  French  dispatches  Nos.  6  and  10, 
so  far  as  they  bore  reference  to  Randolph,  no  one  denied,  and 
Fauchet's  flimsy  explanation,  which  appeared  so  false  upon 
its  face  that  Randolph  made  a  reluctant  use  of  it  afterwards 
in  his  published  defence,  without  either  denying  or  seeking  in 
any  particular,  by  names  or  otherwise,  to  corroborate  it,  left 
the  latter  still  exposed  to  the  very  damaging  imputation  of 
seeking  to  thwart  the  internal  policy  of  the  administration  he 
served  by  secret  collusion  with  a  foreign  minister ;  a  reprehen- 

*  The  translated  extract  from  No.  6,  which  Adet  furnished,  runs  time, : 
"Scarce  was  the  commotion  known,  when  the  Secretary  of  State  came  to 
my  house.  All  his  countenance  was  grief.  lie  requested  of  me  a  pri 
vate  conversation.  '  It  is  all  over,'  he  said  to  me.  'A  civil  war  is  about 
to  ravage  our  unhappy  country.  Four  men,  by  their  talents,  their  influ 
ence,  and  their  energy,  may  save  it.  But,  debtors  of  English  merchants, 
they  will  be  deprived  of  their  liberty  if  they  take  the  smallest  step. 
Could  you  lend  them  instantaneously  funds  sufficient  to  shelter  them 
from  English  persecution  ?' "  And  Fauchet  goes  on  to  express  his  aston 
ishment  at  the  inquiry,  to  which  he  says  it  was  impossible,  from  hia 
want  of  power  and  the  means,  to  make  a  satisfactory  answer. 


300  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

sible  course  of  procedure,  which  would  have  amply  justified 
the  summary  dismissal  of  any  Secretary  of  State  from  the 
cabinet.  Instead  of  disputing  Fauchet  in  any  point,  denying 
indignantly  that  he  had  held  any  such  interview  as  alleged, 
or,  admitting  the  interview,  that  he  had  undertaken  to  be  the 
disburser  of  secret  service  moneys  for  the  real  or  pretended 
necessities  of  other  men  ;  nor,  once  more,  taking  heed  to  fashion 
his  promised  explanation  so  as  to  dispel  the  reasonable  sus 
picions  of  the  President,  the  ex-Secretary  presently  showed  by 
letters  to  Washington  which  he  took  care  should  get  simul 
taneously  into  the  newspapers,  that  he  meant  to  open  a  wide 
controversy  over  the  Jay  treaty  and  other  matters,  with  the 
idea  of  injuring  the  President  before  the  people  on  a  totally 
different  issue. 

Perceiving  Randolph's  drift,  Washington,  who  had  hoped 
Randolph  would  clear  himself  of  suspicion,  and  declared  how 
he  would  rejoice  to  have  him  do  so,  refused  to  accept  any 
vindication  of  his  conduct  other  than  through  the  press.  At 
the  same  time,  in  response  to  the  printed  innuendoes  of  his  late 
Secretary,  he  informed  Randolph  that  he  gave  him  full  liberty 
to  publish  whatever  confidential  letters  or  conversations  had 
ever  passed  between  them  from  whence  Randolph  could  derive 
advantage.  In  November  appeared.  Randolph's  Vindication, 
as  a  copyrighted  work,  a  book  which  showed  more  of  the  vin 
dictive  than  vindicative.  The  Secretary's  appeal  to  the  People, 
as  he  termed  it,  seemed  indeed  the  shrewd  effort  of  a  cunning 
attorney  to  throw  dust  into  the  people's  eyes,  and  evade  the 
main  charge  by  adroitly  shifting  the  issue,  while  the  Jay  ex 
citement  ran  so  high,  so  as  to  convict  the  President  of  either 
weakness  or  duplicity  in  signing  the  treaty,  and  hold  himself 
out  as  the  victim  of  a  British  conspiracy  which  compassed  the 
destruction  of  the  Republican  party  and  America's  liberties. 
This  acrid  publication,  the  only  one  vouchsafing  to  explain 
suspicious  private  interviews  with  a  foreign  diplomatist,  and 
which  it  was  said  vindicated  Randolph's  resignation  better 
than  his  conduct,  buried  the  author  in  political  obscurity  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  "  His  greatest  enemies,"  was  Madison's 
charitable  epitaph,  "will  not  easily  persuade  themselves  that 
he  was  under  a  corrupt  influence  of  France,  and  his  best 


1795.          CABINET  RECONSTRUCTED.  301 

friends  cannot  save  him  from  the  self-condemnation  of  his 
political  career."* 

All  of  the  first  President's  original  advisers  had  now  de 
parted  from  office.  Bradford,  the  Attorney-General,  too, 
dying  soon  after  Randolph's  resignation,  a  decided  reconstruc 
tion  of  the  cabinet  was  found  needful,  and  this  at  the  inoppor 
tune  season  when  the  administration  was  pursuing  a  decidedly 
unpopular  course  in  foreign  affairs.  Washington  sought  again, 
as  formerly,  to  procure,  irrespective  of  party,  men  of  national 
character,  calculated  to  impress  Europe  and  their  own  coun 
trymen  by  their  talents  and  reputation  ;  but  the  effort  was  in 
vain.  After  offering  the  State  portfolio  in  succession  to 
Paterson  of  New  Jersey,  Thomas  Johnson  of  Maryland, 
Charles  C.  Pinckney  of  South  Carolina,  and  Patrick  Henry, 
all  of  whom  declined  it,  he  conferred  it  at  length  upon  Picker 
ing,  who  had  taken  temporary  charge  of  the  office  ;  supplying 
the  latter's  place  in  the  War  Department,  after  the  refusal  of 
Colonel  Carrington  of  Virginia,  and  Colonel  Howard  of 
Maryland,  by  one  who  had  previously  sought  in  vain  an 
humbler  post,  James  McHeury,  of  Maryland.  For  Attorney- 
General,  Charles  Lee,  a  scion  of  the  famous  Virginia  stock, 
was  selected,  John  Marshall  having  declined'a  call.  Wolcott 
remained  at  the  Treasury.  This  was  confessedly,  as  a  whole, 
a  cabinet  of  second-rate  men,  of  persons  who  would  work 
smoothly  in  routine,  and  subserve  the  President's  policy  like 

*  Madison's  Letters,  January,  1796.  It  is  highly  probable  that  Ran 
dolph,  who  was  notoriously  impecunious,  and  known  to  have  used  inju 
rious  expedients  for  replenishing  his  purse  (for  which  reason  Jefferson 
says  in  his  Anas,  1793,  that  he  advised  Washington  against  appointing 
him  for  his  successor),  made  here  an  experiment  upon  Fauehet  for  raising 
private  funds,  and  that  he  told  a  plausible  story,  either  in  the  hope  of 
imposing  upon  the  French  minister's  credulity,  or  to  invent  a  pretext, 
mutually  convenient,  for  the  barter  to  France  of  his  official  influence. 
That  the  "four  men"  mentioned  in  dispatch  No.  (>,  whether  created  by 
the  imagination  of  Randolph,  or  of  Fauchet,  and  whether  statesmen  or 
flour  contractors,  were  men  of  straw,  can  hardly  be  doubted.  Fauchct's 
language,  and  other  circusmtances,  indicate  that  the  experiment  failed, 
and  that  bribe-money  did  not  actually  pass  from  a  foreign  minister  to  an 
American  Secretary  of  State,  an  infamy  to  which  we  may  hope  this 
Government  has  never  been  committed.  The  secret  archives  of  France, 
however,  can  best  resolve  this  problem. 


302  HISTOEY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

so  many  promoted  clerks,  but  whose  minds,  working  hitherto 
in  narrow  channels,  were  unable  to  furnish  those  broad 
generalizations  and  original  views  which,  to  an  executive  of 
Washington's  temperament  at  this  time  of  life,  were  so  essen 
tial,  and  who,  moreover,  had,  none  of  them,  great  influence 
with  the  nation  or  large  communities,  estimable  as  were  their 
private  virtues.  Washington  came  in  consequence  to  depend 
more  upon  the  fertile  Hamilton  for  official  inspiration,  who, 
in  his  turn,  gained  such  an  ascendency  over  these  lesser  minds 
as  presently  to  make  the  cabinet  seem  almost  his  own,  to  the 
sure  detriment  of  any  future  President  who  should  attempt  to 
convert  them  into  official  subordinates  of  his  administration. 

None  of  the  new  department  heads  were  deficient  in  dili 
gence,  probity,  or  sobriety ;  but  their  faults  were  those  of 
mediocre  statesmen  of  the  old  school,  who,  unless  ruled  by  a 
vigilant,  steady,  and  patient  chief  executive  (such  as  Wash 
ington  still  remained  when  beyond  his  prime,  and  while  the 
torpor  of  old  age  had  begun  to  affect  a  life  of  almost  incessant 
activity),  might  lead  an  administration  astray, — the  shepherd, 
so  to  speak,  away  from  the  sheep.  Lee,  who  held  the  least 
important  of  these  posts,  as  concerned  the  public,  and  went 
the  most  evenly,  was  a  man  of  respectable  talents,  who  had 
never  before  filled  high  office.  McHenry  signed  the  'Consti 
tution  as  an  obscure  but  faithful  Maryland  delegate  at  Phila 
delphia  in  1787,  and  in  the  war  had  been  an  aid-de-camp  to 
Lafayette  ;  but  for  the  calibre  of  Secretary  of  War,  Washing 
ton  had  to  own  he  was  a  "  Hobson's  choice."  Wolcott,  whose 
rise  furnished  our  strongest  early  instance  of  civil  service  pro- 
motiQu,  could  doubtless  hold  his  own,  so  far  as  this  involved  the 
simple  working  out  of  Hamilton's  financial  ideas  in  the  round 
of  the  treasury;  but  as  a  general  adviser  he  was  more  politic 
than  bold,  and  in  fact  proved  under  the  new  administration  a 
man  of  cat-like  methods,  by  no  means  praiseworthy  in  his  politi 
cal  conduct,  yet  eminently  capable  of  appearing  so,  and  as  a 
public  official  of  neither  contemptible  abilities  nor  corruptible. 

Pickering,  however,  whose  strides  had  been  the  most  rapid, 
was  marked  for  the  most  permanent  public  honor,  as  well  as 
the  greatest  conspicuousness,  of  any  man  in  this  reconstructed 
cabinet ;  having,  in  fact,  many  of  the  best  qualities  of  a  first-rate 


1795.  PICKERING'S  CHARACTER.  303 

statesman,  such  as  courage  of  opinion,  a  Spartan  simplicity, 
unimpeachable  honesty,*  energy,  and  tenacity  of  purpose. 
His  fatal  defects,  however,  were  inflexibility  and  narrowness 
of  compass.  He  had  a  democratic  sobriety  of  dress  and  de 
meanor,  together  with  a  choleric  dislike  of  democracy,  to  rec 
oncile  which  must  have  involved  him  in  logical  inconsistencies, 
the  effect  partly  of  political  inexperience,  and  partly  of  an  An 
glican  temperament,  not  uncommon  among  the  loftier  descend 
ants  of  the  Puritans  at  that  day,  whom  he  faithfully  represented. 
Uncompromising  and  fearless,  whether  as  civilian  or  quarter 
master,  Pickering  was  a  stern  disciplinarian,  vehement,  rig 
orous,  and  under  a  quiet  exterior  strongly  emulous  of  distinc 
tion.  Spectacles  aided  his  eyes,  but  the  near-sightedness  of 
his  mental  vision  as  a  politician  was  beyond  the  aid  of  optical 
adjuncts.  "  Lank  locks  guiltless  of  pomatum,"  and  a  bald 
ness  undisguised  by  wig  or  powder,f  set  off  the  simplicity  of  a 
Roman  face,  marked  by  lines  of  decision  and  harshness,  and 
rigid  in  composure.  His  figure,  six  feet  high,  gaunt  and  mus 
cular  in  development,  impressed  Indian  chiefs,  with  whom  ho 
was  a  good  negotiator.  Although  at  the  first  period  of  his 
present  giddy  elevation  in  public  life  overawed  somewhat  by 
Hamilton,  of  whose  political  school  he  was  an  earnest  disciple, 
Pickering  soon  showed  self-poise  and  a  better  endurance  of 
obloquy.  With  a  larger  capacity  for  impressing  his  ideas  upon 
others,  and  the  tact  for  carrying  his  daring  projects  into  suc 
cessful  execution,  he  would  have  been  one  of  the  commanding 
Americans  of  his  age,  as  he  certainly  is  historically  one  of  the 
most  interesting ;  but  Pickering  was  as  impracticable  as  am 
bitious,  and,  for  an  American,  strangely  exuberant  in  plans 
which  eliminated  the  popular  wishes  ;  and  inclining  to  despotic 
rule  so  long  as  his  friends  might  be  chosen  the  despot>,  ho 
comes  down  to  us  rather  as  the  embodiment  of  fogy  ism  and 
prejudice,  earnest  as  Don  Quixote,  and,  except  for  his  few 
years  in  the  cabinet,  harmless  politically  as  Bunyan's  Giant 

*  Pickering,  while  an  Indian  Commissioner,  and  a  poor  man,  made 
up  his  accounts  so  as  to  omit  each  day  that  was  not  faithfully  devoted 
to  the  public  service.  And  he  turned  a  clerk  out  of  office,  while  Secre 
tary  of  State,  for  accepting  a  gratuity  of  live  dollars. 

f  See  Mr.  Henry  C.  Lodge's  well-written  and  discriminating  article 
on  Timothy  Pickering,  in  the  Atlantic  Mo  ithl.-,  June,  1873. 


304  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

Pope.  Soldier  or  statesman,  he  never  flinched.  No  anvil 
was  less  malleable  than  this,  upon  which  the  hammer  of  public 
conviction  fell  in  vain.  Pickering  had,  withal,  as  perhaps  his 
best  gift  for  keeping  himself  prominently  in  view,  a  tart  and 
rasping  style  of  writing  at  command,  greatly  enjoyed  by  the 
more  malignant  of  his  party  friends,  and  of  which  he  was  not 
a  little  vain,  employing  his  pen,  however,  as  a  combatant  who 
wishes  not  so  much  to  convince  an  antagonist  as  to  floor  him.* 

Knowing  his  failings,  Pickering's  relatives  felt  anxious  over 
the  transfer  of  one  upon  whose  official  salary  depended  a  large 
family,  from  the  War  Secretaryship,  for  which  he  was  so  well 
qualified,  to  that  government  department  which  most  of  all  re 
quired  moderation,  tact,  and  suavity  of  expression,  and  a  ready 
adaptation  in  small  things  to  the  moods  of  others  for  the  sake 
of  carrying  out  great  purposes  with  foreign  and  uncongenial 
potentates.f 

During  the  fall  of  1795  the  opposition  press  in  this  political 
heat  over  the  British  treaty,  bemired  Washington  more  than 
ever  before;  charging  him,  inasmuch  as  he  had  ratified  it, 
with  political  hypocrisy  and  kingly  demeanor ;  and  one  who 
in  Bache's  Aurora  styled  himself  "  A  Calm  Observer,"  went 
so  far  in  a  foolish  legal  quibble  over  the  technical  quarterly 
division  of  the  Presidential  salary,  as  to  hold  him  up  as  one 
who  had  overdrawn  it,  a  public  defaulter.^  But  after  this  first 

*  Pickering's  want  of  the  diplomatic  touch  appeared  in  several  in 
stances  at  this  period.  He  drew  up  two  drafts  for  the  President's  reply 
to  the  Boston  memorial  (of  course  not  adopted),  which  informed  the 
memorialists,  in  a  pedantic  and  most  discourteous  tone,  that  this  govern 
ment  is  not  a  democracy,  but  a  government  by  representation  ;  and  that 
"  a  numerous  and  promiscuous  assembly  of  the  people  "  is  incapable  of 
forming  a  deliberative  judgment  in  matters  like  the  present.  Writing 
in  October  to  Randolph,  through  his  chief  clerk,  he  made  the  unkind 
thrust  that  he  "  perfcctlv  well  knows  that  his  resignation  was  occa 
sioned  solely  by  the  evidence  of  his  criminal  conduct  exhibited  in  Mr. 
Fauchet's  letter." 

f  Pickering's  Life.  As  Mr.  Lodge  shows,  this  family  biography 
softens  down  the  hero  so  much  i;i  his  personal  and  political  controver 
sies  as  to  do  both  reader  and  subject  great  injustice. 

t  This  absurd  charge  was  promptly  confuted  by  Wolcott  first,  and  next 
by  Hamilton.  It  was  commonly  asserted  in  contemporary  newspapers, 


1795-96.  PUBLIC   FEELIXG.  305 

ebullition  of  rage  the  people  gravitated  towards  Washington 
again,  as  they  always  had  done  before.  Most  of  the  State 
legislatures  on  assembling  in  the  winter,  passed  resolutions 
expressive  of  unshaken  confidence  in  the  President's  integrity, 
and  avowing  for  the  most  part  an  equal  trust  in  his  official 
discretion.  But  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  refusing  to  go  to 
this  latter  length,  commended  the  Senators  of  that  State  for 
their  opposition  to  the  treaty,  and  proposed  among  other  new 
constitutional  amendments,  one  which  should  require  the  con 
sent  of  both  houses  of  Congress  to  the  ratification  of  all  treaties. 
Samuel  Adams,  who  had  kept  the  executive  chair  of  Massa 
chusetts  since  Hancock's  death,  despite  all  Federal  effort  to 
shake  off  the  old  man,  advised  a  similar  amendment  in  his 
opening  address  to  the  Massachusetts  legislature ;  but  the 
replies  of  that  body  were  not  responsive. 

It  became  presently  evident  that  the  Republicans  in  the 
popular  branch  of  Congress,  complying  with  Jefferson's  ad 
vice,  and  the  tenor  of  petitions  largely  circulated  amongst  the 
people,  would  go  one  step  further,  and  make  a  final  effort  to 
defeat  the  Jay  treaty,  by  withholding  the  appropriations  need 
ful  for  carrying  its  arrangements  into  effect. 

The  fourth  Congress  having  convened  in  the  midst  of  these 
preparations,  the  new  Senate  gallery  revealed  a  ^  ?  17^ 
body  of  men  disposed,  by  more  than  a  mere  major 
ity,  to  support  openly  what  they  had  secretly  commended  in 
special  session.  But  the  House  was  of  quite  another  com 
plexion,  though  the  Republicans  failed  at  the  outset  to  re-elect 
Muhlenberg  speaker,  and  the  more  available  and  plausible 
Dayton,  whose  anti-British  vehemence  in  the  previous  Con 
gress  procured  him  support  outside  of  his  own  party,  gained 
the  honor.  Beckley,  the  clerk,  was  re-elected,  though  obnox 
ious  to  the  Federalists.  There  were  some  notable  accessions 
to  Congress  in  this  branch  :  Joseph  B.  Varnum,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  who  succeeded  Dexter;  Roger  Griswold,  of  Con- 
that  Randolph  wrote  or  instigated  this  attack  ;  of  which  assertion  Ran 
dolph,  in  his  evasive  way,  made  only  an  equivocal  denial,  where  it 
was  proper  for  one  either  to  have  denied  plainly  or  preserved  a  dig 
nified  silence. 
VOL.  i.— 26 


306  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

necticut,  a  stalwart  Federalist ;  Robert  G.  Harper,  of  South 
Carolina,  a  fine  debater,  but  fickle  in  his  political  opinions; 
Edward  Livingston,  of  New  York,  an  able  member  of  his  in 
fluential  family  on  the  opposition  side  ;  and  greatest  of  all, 
Albert  Gallatin,  who  stood  firmly  on  his  feet  from  the  moment 
he  entered  the  House,  and  at  this  first  session,  showed  himself 
a  party  champion  on  the  floor,  not  inferior  to  Madison.  The 
House  confirming  its  predecessor's  course  in  respect  of  curtail 
ing  treasury  influence,  by  establishing  a  standing  Committee 
of  Ways  and  Means,  Gallatin,  from  his  special  mastery  of 
finance,  proved  himself  its  most  valuable  member. 

The  early  proceedings  of  this  session  were  not  interesting. 
The  preliminary  skirmishing  over  the  President's  message 
developed  in  the  House  a  strong  dissatisfaction  with  Jay's 
treaty;  and  in  fact,  upon  a  debate,  words  expressive  of  the 
usual  decided  approbation  of  the  sentiments  contained  in  the 
President's  message,  were  omitted  on  this  occasion  from  the 
House  answer,  after  an  effort  had  failed  to  dispense  altogether 
with  the  obsequious  practice  of  sending  a  formal  response. 

The  presentation  of  a  French  flag  to  the  President  on  New 
Year's  day  by  Minister  Adet,  on  behalf  of  the  Com- 
miftee  of  Safety  in  France,  afforded  that  diplomats 
an.  opportunity  of  paying  a  glowing  tribute  to  the  republic 
which,  struggling  for  the  liberties  of  the  human  race,  had 
sought  to  draw  closer  the  ties  that  bound  her  to  America. 
Washington  received  the  silk  Tricolor  with  a  becoming  ac 
knowledgment  ;  and  sending  it  afterwards  for  exhibition  to 
Congress,  drew  forth  an  expression  of  legislative  sympathy, 
dictated  by  republican  zeal,  in  which  the  Federalists  of  both 
Houses  concurred,  as  in  duty  bound,  but  with  suppressed  ill- 
humor.  The  President  ordered  the  French  colors  to  be  de- 
pgsited  with  the  archives  of  the  nation. 

Besides  the  treaty  which  Wayne  had  negotiated  with  the 
Northwestern  Indians,  Washington  was  enabled  at  this  session 
to  submit  two  new  foreign  treaties  to  the  Senate,  recently  con 
cluded  with  Algiers*  and  Spainf  respectively.  The  Algiers 
treaty  yielded  tribute  after  the  European  fashion  as  the  con 
sideration  of  an  unmolested  commerce.  This  peace,  with  the 

*  Dated  September  5th,  1795.  f  Dated  October  27th,  1795. 


1796.  ALGIERS   AND   SPANISH   TREATIES.  307 

ransom  paid  for  the  release  of  our  captives  and  sundry  presents, 
cost  $1,000,000,  besides  a  promised  annuity  to  the  Dey  of  $60,- 
000  ;  and  indeed,  as  subsequent  events  proved,  the  Aigerine  chief 
showed  such  impatience  over  the  delay  in  ratifying  the  treaty 
and  fetching  him  the  ransom-money,  that  our  representative 
had  to  soothe  him  with  the  promise  of  a  frigate  worth  $100,- 
000  besides,  instead  of  the  contents  of  its  broadside,  as  his 
haughty  petulance  deserved.  In  pleasing  contrast,  both  with 
this  sanctioned  extortion  and  the  British  arrangement,  was 
the  treaty  which  Thomas  Pinckney  had  arranged  at  Madrid, 
having  been  sent  thither  from  London  quite  seasonably.  That 
treaty  established  as  boundaries  of  the  United  States  East 
and  West  Florida  on  the  south,  and,  above  latitude  31°,  the 
middle  of  the  Mississippi  River.  Illegal  captures  made  by 
Spain  during  her  late  war  with  France  were  here  compen 
sated,  favorable  rules  were  prescribed  for  neutral  commerce, 
and  Indian  aggressions  on  either  side,  together  with  the  arm 
ing  of  privateers,  discountenanced.  But  the  chief  diplomatic 
exploit  of  Pinckney  was  in  gaining  (what  Jay  years  before, 
when  the  Continental  head  of  foreign  affairs,  had  been  in 
clined  to  surrender)  Spain's  recognition  of  the  right,  so  streu- 
|  uously  asserted  by  the  United  States,  to  freely  navigate  the 
•  Mississippi  River ;  to  which  was  added  a  three  years'  privi 
lege  of  deposit  at  the  port  of  New  Orleans,  free  of  duty. 
The  Spanish  treaty  was  highly  acceptable  to  the  country,  and 
all  three,  with  Algiers,  Spain,  and  the  Northwestern  Indians, 
were,  as  compacts  of  peace,  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 

The  winter  having  passed  in  comparative  quiet,  at  length 
came  the  struggle  in  the  House  over  an  appropriation  for  the 
Jay  treaty,  for  which  both  sides  had  been  preparing.  The 
treaty,  with  its  suspended  article,  had  come  back  from  Great 
Britain  fully  ratified  (the  new  and  obnoxious  provision  order 
having  already  been  repealed),  and  the  President  thereupon 
proclaimed  it  the  law  of  the  land,  communicating  this  action 
to  the  House  accordingly.  Livingston  at  once  of- 
fered  a  resolution  requesting  the  President  to  lay 
before  the  House  his  instructions  to  Jay,  and  the  correspond 
ence  and  other  documents  relative  to  the  negotiation  of  this 
treaty. 


308  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

Upon  this  resolution  ensued  the  first  of  the  two  great  debates 
in  the  House  upon  the  British  treaty  ;  debates  which 

March  7-24.  .     J  '  . 

were  ab!y  conducted  on  both  sides,  and,  with  per 
haps  the  exception  of  that  more  hurrie-d  discussion  of  Hamil 
ton's  national  bank  in  1791,  constituting  the  first  grand  con 
troversy  in  Congress  over  fundamental  doctrines  under  the 
present  system. 

The  merits  and  demerits  of  the  Jay  treaty  were  here  post 
poned  to  the  preliminary  inquiry  whether  the  House  could 
rightfully  participate  in  giving  treaties  their  full  effect.  Against 
such  a  right  it  was  contended  that  the  treaty-making  power 
was  expressly  vested  in  the  President,  with  the  concurrence  of 
two-thirds  of  the  Senate,  as  a  peculiar  governmental  function 
to  be  exercised  in  a  peculiar  manner.  Moreover,  treaties  made 
under  the  authority  of  the  United  States  were  by  the  Consti 
tution  pronounced  "  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,"  as  co-equal 
with  legislative  acts,  and  quite  independent  of  them.  Unless 
the  treaty-making  power  were  thus  broadly  conferred,  it  would 
be  nugatory;  often  inadequate  for  treaties  of  peace,  and  always 
for  those  of  alliance  and  commerce.  Such  were  the  views  ably 
presented  by  Smith,  Harper,  Murray,  Tracy,  and  others  on  the 
Federal  side. 

On  the  other  hand,  Gallatin,  Madison,  Livingston,  and 
Giles,  with  their  political  allies,  relied  upon  the  fundamental 
structure  of  our  Federal  government,  whereby  all  legislative 
functions,  including  the  right  to  borrow  and  appropriate  money 
and  to  regulate  commerce,  are  vested  in  a  Congress  composed 
of  two  houses;  and  they  claimed  that  unless  this  House,  a  co 
ordinate  branch  of  Congress,  had  some  discretionary  right  in 
the  premises,  the  people  did  not  rule  in  the  government  through 
their  immediate  representatives.  This  was  a  popular  argu 
ment  upon  the  very  strongest  state  of  facts ;  for  it  was  unde 
niable  that  the  Jay  treaty  circumvented  the  known  declara 
tion  and  will  of  a  House,  the  predecessor  of  this  one,  in  certain 
provisions  recommended,  by  Hamilton  at  least,  and  inserted 
with  that  express  design  in  view,  of  making  laws  by  the  more 
convenient  combination  of  President  and  Senate  instead  of 
President  and  Congress.  And  although  in  this  first  instance 
of  a  foreign  treaty  arrangement  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 


1796.  JAY  TREATY  DEBATES.  309 

stitution  national  precedents  were  wanting,  these  speakers 
showed  that  by  the  practice  of  the  British  Parliament  treaties 
already  fully  negotiated  had  fallen  to  the  ground  the  moment 
the  House  of  Commons  refused  an  assent  which  that  branch 
felt  competent  to  give.* 

The  best  constitutional  speech  on  the  Republican  side  was 
Gallatin's,  one  which  Jefferson  thought  worthy  of  insertion  at 
the  end  of  the  Federalist  as  the  only  rational  commentary  on 
the  treaty  clauses  of  the  American  Constitution.  Gal  latin  did 
not  claim  on  the  part  of  the  House  an  absolute  right  of  review 
in  every  instance  of  negotiation,  but  that  whenever  the  Presi 
dent  and  jSenate  include  in  a  treaty  matters  confided  by  the 
Constitution  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  an  act  of 
legislation  will  be  necessary  to  confirm  these  articles,  which 
act  the  House,  as  a  co-ordinate  branch,  is  perfectly  competent 
to  pass  or  reject  at  discretion,  and  that  thus  the  absorption 
of  legislative  powers  by  the  treaty-making  organ  would  be 
obviated.  Again,  he  argued,  if  treaties  are  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land,  so  likewise  are  the  Constitution  and  pursuant 
congressional  laws  ;  and  both  congressional  law  and  treaty  are 
designed  to  operate  without  preference  to  either  and  under  due 
limitations,  which  the  organic  law  indicates. 

Livingston's  resolution  was  carried  by  62  to  37,  the  call 
for  papers  turning  essentially  upon  the  point  that  the  present 
treaty  professed  to  operate  on  subjects  specially  delegated  by 
the  Constitution  to  legislative  discretion  ;  though,  in  view  of  a 
possible  impeachment  of  executive  officers,  it  was  considered 
that  the  House  might  likewise  have  claimed  on  that  ground 
the  right  to  make  it.  In  any  sense  the  House  would  natu 
rally  incline  to  uphold  its  own  authority. 

Anticipating  this  vote  the  President,  after  consulting  his 
Cabinet  and  Hamilton,!  had  determined  to  resist  the  legal 
claim  of  the  House  upon  which  the  call  was  based.  As  to 
the  expediency  of  a  refusal  on  his  part  he  was  more  doubtful, 
for,  unless  it  were  that  the  official  correspondence  betrayed  on 
Randolph's  part  too  little  spirit,  firmness,  and  point,  there 
was  nothing  in  the  documents  accompanying  this  negotiation. 

*  See  5  Parl.  Deb.,  43;  Barrier  treaty  and  Utrecht  treaty  of  1713-14. 
f  G  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Kepublic  ;  Hamilton's  Works. 


310  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

which  could  possibly  injure  the  Executive  by  their  revelation. 
But,  braced  by  a  unanimous  cabinet,  Washington 
made  his  refusal  explicit  and   absolute.      He  ob 
served  that  since  no  impeachment  purpose  was  disclosed  in 
the  call,  he  was  not  bound  to  consider  that  cause  of  disclosure 
as  here  involved.     He  denied  that  the  assent  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  could  be  essential  to  the  constitutional  valid 
ity  of  a  treaty,  making  reference  here  to  a  vote  taken  in  the 
Federal  Convention  of  1787,  of  which  he  personally  had  been 
cognizant,  pointing  to  such  a  conclusion  ;  and  he  referred  the 
House  finally  to  the  language  of  the  treaty  itself  for  ascer 
taining  sufficiently  whatever  objects  might  require  legislative 
provision.     To  this  the  House  rejoined  by  resolu 
tions  affirming  its  own  view  of  the  constitutional 
right  of  the  case.* 

Thus  the  issue  rested  until  a  motion  on  the  Federal  side 
for  an  appropriation  to  execute  the  treaty  was  in  order.  The 
Federalists  first  sought  to  tack  all  the  treaties  to 
gether  in  order  to  aid  their  cause,  but  this  attempt 
was  frustrated,  and  the  House  advanced  the  appropriation 
measures  for  the  Indian,  Spanish,  and  Algiers  treaties  alone, 
under  a  consistent  reservation  of  its  legal  rights.  The  ques 
tion  then  came  squarely  upon  appropriating  certain  moneys 
to  execute  the  British  treaty,  agreeably  to  a  motion  of  Hill- 
house  on  behalf  of  those  desiring  it.  The  anti-treaty  men 
privately  agreed  to  vote  this  appropriation  down,  a  decision 
which  produced  among  the  friends  of  the  treaty  the  greatest 
consternation.  Hamilton  had  proposed,  however,  this  plan 
for  seizing  and  carrying  public  opinion  boldly  along  :  the  Pres 
ident  to  make  public  protest ;  the  Senate  to  hold  fast,  consent 
to  no  adjournment,  and  refuse  other  legislation  in  which  the 

*  These  resolutions  passed  by  57  to  35.  The  President's  allusion  to 
the  Federal  Convention,  which  Hamilton — whose  own  carefully  worded 
draft  was  ignored,  while  the  President  and  Cabinet  prepared  a  reply  to 
gether — thought  injudicious  here,  elicited  a  reply  from  Madison.  "  The 
sense  of  that  body,"  Madison  observed,  "  can  never  be  regarded  as  the 
oracular  guide  in  expounding  the  Constitution,"  and,  besides,  the  rejec 
tion  of  that  casual  proposal  for  requiring  the  consent  of  the  House  to 
treaties  was,  in  fact,  a  mere  abstract  vote,  deciding  nothing  pro  or  con, 


1796.  JAY  TREATY  DEBATES.  311 

House  was  interested  ;  merchants  and  citizens  to  be  stirred  up 
to  petition.  Except  for  the  President's  part,  which  no  one 
could  vouch  for,  this  was  the  programme  as  substantially  car 
ried  out  by  the  Federalists. 

ILL  this  second  debate,  which  went  to  the  merits  of  the  pres 
ent  treaty  and  the  general  expediency  of  an  appro-  ^__^ 
priation,  Madison  led  in  the  van  of  the  opposition. 
His  speech  arraigned  the  British  treaty  in  these  three  leading 
particulars  :  (1.)  Want  of  reciprocity  with  reference  to  the 
peace  of  1783;  since  Great  Britain  gains  principal  and  inter 
est  of  British  debts,  while  the  United  States  gets  no  compen 
sation  for  carrying  off  negroes  or  detaining  the  posts,  and 
Great  Britain  hampers  the  surrender  of  the  latter  by  keeping 
her  Indian  influence  on  the  continent  still  open.  (2.)  Want 
of  reciprocity  in  the  neutral  and  international  rules;  since  we 
yield  sequestration  of  debts  and  that  principle  of  "free  ships, 
free  goods,"  so  desirable  to  neutral  commerce,  which  all  our 
other  treaties  have  recognized,  while  the  contraband  clauses 
operate  further  to  our  decided  disadvantage.  (3.)  Want  of 
reciprocity  in  commercial  aspects  ;  for  we  give  Great  Britain, 
liberal  rights  in  the  Mississippi  and  Indian  trade,  but  receive 
nothing  in  that  of  the  British  West  Indies,  which  had  been 
so  much  desired  ;  and  even  the  East  India  trade  is  of  doubt 
ful  advantage,  for  we  might  have  enjoyed  it  as  well  without 
the  treaty.  Nicholas,  Giles,  Page,  Swauwick,  Findley,  and 
others  followed  with  like  objections,  arguing  further  the  in 
justice  done  to  France,  and  the  possibility  of  an  immense 
award  of  the  British  debts,  while,  perhaps,  American  spolia 
tions  would  fail  altogether. 

The  friends  of  the  treaty  on  their  part  defended  its  provi 
sions  to  the  utmost.  The  fbar  that  American  spoliation  claims 
would  fail  before  a  commission  was  derided,  and  the  recogni 
tion  of  such  claims  pronounced,  as  indeed  it  was,  a  most 
valuable  provision.'  Goodhue,  from  the  Salem  district,  gave 
assurance  that  the  clause  concerning  the  East  India  trade  was 
of  positive  benefit  to  the  mercantile  community ;  members 
from  the  New  York  frontiers  asserted  upon  their  personal 
knowledge  that  the  Indian  traffic,  after  the  actual  surrender 
of  the  Western  posts,  would  fall  essentially  into  American 


312  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

hands  ;  and  Hillhouse  scouted  the  idea  that  thin  government 
should  be  restrained  from  obtaining  advantages  from  one  for 
eign  nation  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  another. 

But  the  dreaded  consequences  of  rejection  under  the  pres 
ent  circumstances — a  rupture  with  Great  Britain,  war,  and  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union — furnished  the  sharpest  weapon  to  the 
treaty  defenders.  To  make  such  a  rejection  more  palatable 
Livingston  had  intimated  that  the  United  States  might,  per 
haps,  assume  these  spoliations  on  behalf  of  the  injured  citi 
zens.  Gallatin,  admitting  further  the  fact  that  it  was  quite 
unlikely  a  new  treaty  could  be  negotiated  with  Great  Britain 
if  this  were  lost,  boldly  weighed  the  probable  consequences  of 
rejection  ;  namely,  a  loss  of  spoliations  on  the  one  hand,  but 
relief  from  British  debts  on  the  other;  the  use  still  of  our 
own  weapons  as  neutrals;  no  war,  for  Great  Britain  was 
otherwise  occupied  on  her  part,  nor  would  Congress  declare 
it ;  no  dissolution  of  the  Union,  for  this  was  an  unmanly  fear. 
To  him  the  promised  surrender  of  the  posts  seemed  a  thing 
of  no  great  consequence,  while  the  recent  provision  orders  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  unmodffied  British  claim  of  search  and 
impressment  were  conclusive  reasons  why  we  should  refuse  the 
present  alliance,  and  maintain  the  nation's  interest,  honor,  and 
independence  in  preference. 

The  Federalists  had  prolonged  this  second  debate  in  order 
that  the  mercantile  community  might  make  its  influence  felt 
upon  the  wavering  brethren.  The  excitement  outside  Con 
gress  had  indeed  become  intense ;  town  meetings  were  held  in 
the  commercial  States  to  sustain  Washington  and  his  policy; 
petitions  came  in  daily  to  the  House  praying  that  the  treaty 
be  carried  into  speedy  execution.  Commerce  was  temporarily 
suspended.  While  the  appropriation  under  discussion  was  so 
trifling  that  those  directly  interested  in  sustaining  the  treaty 
might  have  made  up  a  purse  to  supply  it,  the  spectacle  of  con 
stant  unrest  and  uusettlement,  of  a  government  divided 
against  itself,  President  and  Senate  on  one  side  and  the  House 
on  the  other,  was  so  appalling  that  the  people  of  the  Eastern 
and  Middle  States,  fearing  a  foreign  and  civil  war  together 
should  this  state  of  turmoil  longer  continue,  now  besought 
their  representatives  to  pursue  no  farther  a  principle  of  con- 


179G.  SPEECH   OF   AMES.  313 

stitutional  reversal,  which  had  already  been  strongly  enough 
asserted,  rightly  or  wrongly,  for  a  first  occasion. 

While  the  fate  of  this  nation  to  so  many  hung  apparently 
by  the  same  thread  with  the  treaty,  Ames  rose  to  his  feet  to 
deliver  the  most  eloquent  speech  ever  heard  in  Congress  by 
his  generation.  Failing  health  had  kept  one  of  the  most 
experienced  debaters  of  the  House  from  mingling  hitherto  in 
the  discussion  ;  a  misfortune  which  was  felt  all  the  more 
keenly  as  Tracy,  who  had  been  put  forward  to  respond  to  the 
calm  and  reassuring  speech  of  Gallatin,  showed  too  much  as 
perity  to  make  a  strong  counter-impression,  and  marred  the 
effect  of  his  argument  by  ill-natured  flings  at  Gallatiu's  foreign 
nativity.  Ames,  against  his  physician's  advice,  determined  to 
speak,  and  the  galleries  filled  to  hear  him.  He  arose  pale 
and  feeble,  hardly  able  to  stand,  but  soon  warmed  with  the 
subject  and  the  opportunity.  Touching  with  delicacy  upon 
French  excesses  and  the  first  commotion  which  the  treaty  had 
excited,  the  movements  of  passion,  which  are  quicker  than 
those  of  the  understanding,  deprecating  all  foreign  partisan 
ship,  and  making  no  attempt  to  vaunt  unduly  the  merits  of  the 
treaty  as  other  Federalists  had  done,  he  pressed  home  with 
earnestness  and  force  the  strongest  points  in  favor  of  passing 
the  present  appropriation.  These  points  were,  the  inconsist 
ency  of  letting  negotiation  operate  a  full  treaty  ratified  in 
every  particular,  and  then  claiming  the  right  to  defeat  its 
execution  afterwards;  the  wound  to  the  public  honor  of  this 
nation  should  the  public  faith  be  violated ;  the  certainty  of 
both  foreign  war  and  anarchy,  as  he  viewed  it,  if  the  proposed 
treaty  should  fail  in  this  manner.  It  was  in  depicting  the 
horrors  which,  to  his  mind,  depressed  under  the  influence  of 
a  deepseated  malady,  were  sure  to  follow  so  dangerous  a 
course,  that  Ames's  eloquence  took  its  loftiest  flight,  moving 
his  hearers  to  tears.  He  pictured  the  new  frontier  war  which 
would  be  provoked  by  Britain's  c  oitiiiued  retention  of  the  posts 
—the  blaze  of  the  log-houses,  the  war-whoop  of  the  Indians, 
the  bound  victims,  all  the  terrors  of  1794  repeated.  Beckon 
ing  to  his  hearers  like  the  spoctre  of  some  disembodied  hero 
who  awaits  the  cock-crow  before  returning  to  the  shades  of  an 
invisible  world,  Ames  held  his  long  familiar  associates  spell- 
VOL,.  i. — 27 


314  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

bound  by  a  vivid  imagery  of  these  dreadful  scenes  and  a 
pathos  of  expression  worthy  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  "Even 
the  minutes  I  have  spent  in  expostulation/'  were  his  closing 
solemn  words,  "  have  their  value,  because  they  protract  the 
crisis  and  the  short  period  in  which  alone  we  may  resolve  to 
escape  it.  Yet  I  have,  perhaps,  as  little  personal  interest  in 
the  event  as  any  one  here.  There  is,  I  believe,  no  member  who 
will  not  think  his  chance  to  be  a  witness  of  the  consequences 
greater  than  mine.  If,  however,  the  vote  should  pass  to  reject, 
and  a  spirit  should  rise,  as  it  will,  with  the  public  disorders  to 
make  confusion  worse  confounded,  even  I,  slender  and  almost 
broken  as  my  hold  on  life  is,  may  outlive  the  government  and 
Constitution  of  my  country."* 

This  speech,  whose  pathetic  utterances  were  wrung  from  a 
suffering  heart,  carried  the  day,  not  without  compassion  for  the 
sufferer,  for  it  was  blind  Milton  reciting  "Paradise  Lost."  There 
was  scarcely  a  dry  eye  in  the  House.  Judge  Iredell  and  the 
Vice-President  sat  sobbing  in  the  gallery  together,  and  ejacu 
lating  :  "My  God!  how  great  he  is!"  "Noble!"  An  ad 
journment  was  carried  ;  but  Ames's  speech  was  unanswered, 
its  impression  remained,  and  the  vote  taken  the 
next  day  stood  49  to  49  on  the  question  of  appro 
priation.  Dayton  had  come  over,  and  others  of  the  hesitant. 
Even  Muhlenberg,  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole, 
in  which  this  discussion  took  place,  now  gave  his  casting  vote 
in  favor  of  the  appropriation,  and  the  resolution  on  its  final 
passage  was  carried  through  the  House  by  51  to  48.  There 
were  only  four  votes  cast  against  it  from  New  England,  and 
only  four  in  favor  of  it  from  the  South,  but  the  members  from 
the  Middle  States  had  decided  the  contest  by  yielding  to  elo 
quence  and  an  immense  external  pressure  from  their  con 
stituencies. 

Congress  adjourned  June  1st,  admitting  Tennessee  into  the 
Union  by  a  bill  which  passed  upon  conference  the  last  day  of 

*  Ames's  later  correspondence  shows  how  rapidly  he  was  now  settling 
into  a  political  melancholy,  with  constant  visions  of  the  second  death. 
A  few  days  before  delivering  this  speech  he  wrote :  "  Here  we  dance 
upon  the  edge  of  the  pit,  crying  £a.ira;  it  is  but  a  little  way  to  the 
bottom." — Fisher  Ames's  Works. 


1796.  MISCELLANEOUS   ACTS.  315 

the  session,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territory  having  already 
adopted  a  State  constitution  and  claiming  the  requisite  popu 
lation  for  becoming  a  State  under  their  territorial  act.*  In 
view,  too,  of  the  peaceful  situation  at  the  Northwest,  a  public 
laud  law  was  passed,  with  the  crude  design  of  affording  a 
revenue  from  the  sale  of  large  government  tracts  in  sections 
of  640  acres,  part  of  this  purchase-money  to  be  deferred  on 
security  of  the  laucl.f  Trade  with  the  Indians  was  regulated 
so  as  to  protect  their  tribes  from  hostile  encroach meuts.J  As 
government  was  becoming  straitened  in  finances,  a  new  car 
riage  tax  was  laid;  but  Congress  decided,  notwithstanding  the 
Algiers  treaty,  to  continue  building  the  frigates  which  were 
originally  designed  for  the  Mediterranean. 

The  impressment  troubles  still  continuing,  an  act  of  this 
session  authorized  American  agents  abroad  to  investigate  re 
ported  cases,  and  provided,  by  way  of  credentials,  that  our 
seamen  should  be  supplied  with  certificates  of  citizenship  and 
identity.  Except  for  preserving  evidence  of  impressments 
this  act  did  little  good,  however;  for  sailors  would  lose  their 
certificates  in  various  ways,  while  Great  Britain  still  insisted 
that  no  foreign  naturalization  could  protect  one  who  was  born 
a  Briton.  The  international  difficulty  here  was  a  practical 
one ;  Americans  and  English  could  not  well  be  distinguished 
apart  by  the  usual  signs  of  language  and  personal  appear 
ance.  Americans  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  had  been 
born  in  British  allegiance,  and  simply  conquered  an  exemption 
from  the  British  rule  which  forbade  expatriation  ;  hence,  in 
the  absence  of  a  mutual  convention  on  the  subject,  and  some 
relaxation  of  the  British  policy,  this  detestable  right  of 
search,  which  no  other  nation  claimed,  was  continually  toler 
ated  by  the  United  States  simply  because  resistance  on  the 
part  of  our  citizens  was  unavailing.  A  British  naval  officer 
would  board  one  of  our  vessels,  order  the  crew  paraded  on 
deck,  seize  and  carry  off'  whatever  men  he  chose  to  say 
were  British  subjects,  and  press  them  into  his  service,  leaving 
our  government  to  remonstrate  at  leisure,  and  too  often  in 


Act  June  1st,  1796.  f  Act  May  18th,  1790. 

Act  May  19th,  179G. 


316  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  III. 

vain.  For  months  Washington  had  complained  indignantly 
of  these  and  other  domineering  acts  of  Great  Britain  at  this 
delicate  crisis  of  the  treaty ;  of  vexatious  captures  by  the 
Bermuda  privateers ;  of  insults  and  menaces  by  British  cap 
tains  in  American  ports  ;  of  Canada  irritations ;  of  the  habit 
which  had  grown  in  England  of  sending  obnoxious  refugees 
over,  as  if  to  insult  us.* 

The  sour  Hammond,  an  utterly  unsympathetic  ambassador, 
having  returned  home,  Bond,  the  British  charge,  had  inti 
mated  at  the  critical  moment  when  the  House  discussion  was 
in  progress,  that,  unless  the  treaty  appropriation  passed,  the 
Western  posts  would  not  be  surrendered  at  all ;  and,  as  if  the 
British  Cabinet  were  seeking  some  new  pretext  for  evading  the 
stipulation  upon  which  American  pride  was  most  sensitive,  he 
pointed  out  a  clause  in  Wayne's  treaty  as  one  which  to  his 
government  seemed  to  conflict  with  the  right  Jay  had  as 
sented  to,  of  mutual  free  trade  with  the  Indians.  This  last 
stricture  was  too  much  for  the  patience  of  Hamilton,")"  who  had 
hitherto,  from  patriotic  or  professional  motives,  advocated  the 
interests  of  Great  Britain. J  The  appropriation  for  the  execu 
tion  of  the  Jay  treaty  having  at  length  passed  Congress,  and 
the  President  appearing  to  be  in  no  mood  for  trifling,  Bond 
and  Pickering,  as  special  diplomatic  representatives  of  the 
two  nations,  hastily  executed  in  Philadelphia  the 
explanatory  article  requisite  as  to  the  Indian  treaty; 
but  without  waiting  for  ratifications  to  be  exchanged,  Wash- 


*  Washington's  Writings,  August-December,  1795. 

f  "  The  British  ministry,"  he  writes,  "  are  as  great  fools,  or  as  great 
rascals,  as  our  Jacobins,  else  our  commerce  would  not  continue  to  be 
distressed  as  it  is  by  their  cruisers ;  nor  would  the  Executive  be  em 
barrassed,  as  it  now  is,  by  the  new  proposition." — Hamilton's  Works, 
April  20th,  1796. 

|  In  Camillus  and  other  press  publications  Hamilton  defended  the 
British  treaty  and  impressment  more  unreservedly  than  in  private.  As 
he  was  now  dependent  upon  his  professional  income  it  would  not  be 
singular  if  in  this  and  some  other  measures  of  the  day  his  course  was 
influenced  by  his  relations  to  clients.  Of  this  there  are  decided  indica 
tions  as  regards  the  National  Bank  and  Bank  of  New  York  this  year. 
See  Hamilton's  Works,  1796. 


1794.  FOREIGN  RELATIONS.  317 

ington  marched  troops  to  the  frontiers,  and  the  Western  posts 
were  surrendered.     After  this   important  initiation 
of  treaty  terms  on  Great  Britain's  part,  to  otherwise 
execute  the  compact  literally  followed  as  of  course  ;  hut  addi 
tional  articles  on  behalf  of  the  United  States  could  never  be 
procured.     Of  the  temporary  misunderstanding  which  arose 
later  concerning  the  British  claims  we  shall  speak  hereafter. 

But  while  the  British  horizon  was  brightening,  that  of 
France  had  perceptibly  darkened.  This,  a  natural  conse 
quence  of  the  new  diplomatic  eclipse  France  had  suffered,  was 
increased  by  the  unfortunate  course  of  Monroe's  mission  in 
that  country. 

The  President's  fondness  for  balancing  civilians  of  opposite 
views  must  have  led  him  into  an  error  of  iiuljrment 

1 794- 

in  the  present  appointment.  Monroe,  though  cer 
tainly  pure  and  honorable,  was  too  emotional  and  frank  a 
person  at  his  age  to  make  a  successful  diplomatist  on  so  deli 
cate  an  occasion.  Anti-Jay,  and  Galilean  in  his  sympathies, 
nor  as  shrewd  as  he  was  sanguine  of  temperament,  any  one 
but  a  Washington  would  have  been  thought  to  use  him  for 
the  special  purpose  of  stroking  down  the  French  fox  in  this 
critical  emergency  while  Britain  was  filching  its  brush  ;  or  per 
haps  so  as  to  disgrace  an  opposition  leader  by  employing  him 
on  a  service  where  he  would  be  sure  to  make  an  ignominious 
failure. 

Circumstances,  quite  unforeseen  and  unfortunate,  however, 
combined  to  place  Monroe  in  his  strangely  unwelcome  position ; 
while  the  President  had  intended  this  mission  to  redound  to 
the  honor  of  the  nation  and  of  Monroe  himself.  Jay  about 
the  same  time  had  started,  it  must  be  remembered,  on  a  very 
uncertain  embassy,  as  though  to  give  England  her  choice  be 
tween  peace  and  open  war,  an  embassy  whose  unfavorable  turn 
would  inevitably  have  caused  the  administration  to  lean 
strongly  upon  the  French  Republic.*  There  should,  therefore, 

*  Randolph's  instructions  to  Monroe  (June  10th,  1794)  committed  the 
President  as  a  decided  friend  to  the  French  Revolution  (with  a  reser 
vation  as  to  certain  transactions),  and  as  one  who  believed  in  its  eventual 
success.  Recalling  France's  recent  acquiescence  in  our  neutrality,  it 


318  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

have  been  first  of  all,  concert,  confidence,  and  a  good  under 
standing  throughout,  between  our  two  ministers;  but  as  a 
first  misfortune,  there  was  precisely  the  reverse.  Next,  our 
Secretary  of  State  ought  to  have  kept  a  steady  and  vigilant 
direction  of  the  whole  affair;  but  in  this  again,  he  was  remiss. 
During  the  long  lapse  of  instructions  and  positive  information, 
as  to  whither  America  tended,  Monroe  had  to  interpret  his 
duty  by  his  choice ;  and  his  choice,  like  that  of  all  other  indis 
creet  partisans,  in  this  European  war,  was  by  his  inclination, 
namely,  so  as  to  favor  France.  The  delays  and  uncertainties 
of  communication  between  Philadelphia  and  Paris,  now  that 
the  ocean  was  scoured  by  belligerent  vessels,  provoked  further 
misunderstanding.  Monroe's  own  susceptibility  to  transient 
emotions  and  his  self-justifying  disposition  were  obstacles, 
finally,  to  the  pursuance  of  that  warily  sympathetic  policy 
expected  of  him,  which,  even  with  the  most  explicit  instruc 
tions,  it  would  have  been  almost  impossible,  considering  what 
transpired  across  the  Channel,  for  the  best-trained  diplomatist 
to  pursue  successfully. 

Monroe  reached  Paris  August  2d,  shortly  after  the  fall  of 
the  tyrant  Robespierre  and  his  faction.*     After  a 

1794  Au£T  2 

slight  delay,   which   the   new  confusion  in   public 
affairs  should  have  amply  justified,  though  perhaps  a  distrust 


intimated  such  a  course  consistently  hereafter,  and  expressly  authorized 
Monroe  to  disarm  all  prejudice  of  Jay's  mission,  by  giving  assurance 
that  Jay  is  positively  forbidden  to  weaken  our  engagements  with  France, 
and  that  the  motives  of  that  mission  are  a  to  obtain  immediate  compen- 
^ation  for  our  plundered  property,  and  restitution  of  the  posts."  "  You 
will  let' it  be  seen,"  Kandolph  further  says,  "  that  in  case  of  war  with  any 
nation  on  earth,  we  shall  consider  France  as  our  first  and  natural  ally. 
You  may  dwell  upon  the  sense  which  we  entertain  of  past  services,  and 
for  the  more  recent  interposition  on  our  behalf  with  the  Dey  of  Algiers." 
A  caution  that  our  confidence  in  the  French  Kepublic  be  "  without  be 
traying  the  most  remote  mark  of  undue  complaisance,"  served  as  the  only 
restriction  of  consequence  upon  Monroe's  part. 

*  Robespierre's  death  was  hailed  with  delight  by  his  countrymen, 
and  among  the  various  epitaphs  devised  by  the  wits  of  Paris,  the  fol 
lowing  circulated  largely: 

"  Ilonnete  citoyen,  ne  pleure-moi  fort, 
Si  je  vivais,  tu  serais  rnort." 


1794.  MONROE  AT  FRANCE.  319 

of  Jay's  mission  also  operated,  Monroe  was  received  by  the 
National  Convention  of  France  in  full  session  on 
the  15th.  This  was  the  first  time  of  accrediting 
a  minister  to  the  French  Republic.  Thus  on  his  country's  be 
half  publicly  honored,  and  anxious  to  remove  all  unjust  suspi 
cions,  Monroe  delivered  with  his  letters  of  credence,  a  speech 
prepared  for  the  occasion,  quite  highly  wrought,  in  which  he 
drew  a  parallel  between  France  and  America,  our  revolution 
and  the  present,  and  urged  that  "republics  should  approach 
to  each  other."  A  translation  of  this  discourse  into  French 
was  read  by  a  secretary,  and  the  Convention  loudly  applauded 
its  sentiments.  The  president  of  the  Convention,  Merlin  de 
Douai,  now  poured  himself  out  in  a  response,  which  more  than 
hinted  that  a  fraternity,  closer  than  any  merely  diplomatic 
alliance,  ought  to  unite  the  two  peoples  against  "an  impious 
coalition  of  tyrants."  To  this  succeeded  the  accolade  or  na 
tional  embrace,  which  Merlin  gave  Monroe  with  all  the  unction 
called  for.  The  Assembly,  after  this  spectacle  was  over,  de 
creed  that  Monroe  be  recognized,  that  the  flags  of  the  United 
States  and  France  be  displayed  together  in  the  hall  of  the 
Convention,  and  that  the  speeches  of  Monroe  and  Merlin  be 
printed  in  French  and  American.* 

Pursuant  to  the  decree,  Monroe  sent  an  American  flag 
afterwards  by  the  hand  of  one  Barney,  recently  appointed  a 
captain  in  the  infant  American  navy,  who,  in  the  name  of  the 
American  people,  tendered  it  with  some  inflammatory  remarks 
of  his  own,  prompted  by  the  recollection  of  a  personal  outrage 
he  had  borne  from  the  British  fleet  off  the  West  Indies. 
Barney  presently  accepted  a  French  commission,  forfeiting  his 
American  service ;  and  it  was  as  an  exchange  of 
these  international  courtesies,  that  the  French  flag 
was  afterwards  sent  to  the  United  States,  whose  presentation, 
in  1796,  to  Washington,  has  already  been  described.  That 
flag,  however,  did  not  receive  corresponding  marks  of  distinc 
tion. 

This  theatrical  spectacle,  with  its  accolade,  and  the  resolu 
tions  for  blending  the  national  colors,  which,  as  we  may  well 


*  See  4  Hildreth ;  Monroe's  View  ;  U.  S.  Dipl.  Corr.,  1876,  p.  129. 


320  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

presume,  was  prearranged  by  the  Convention  so  as  to  obstruct 
Jay's  mission,  annoyed  Washington  when  he  learned  the  par 
ticulars.  He  had  reasonably  expected  that  Monroe's  creden 
tials  would  be  tendered  and  accepted  without  special  demon 
strations.  The  progress  of  Jay's  negotiations,  too,  had  by  this 
time,  dispelling  his  first  misgivings,  fixed  him  in  the  purpose 
of  keeping  the  French  mission  to  the  neutral  bearing..  Monroe 
had  unwisely  contributed,  too,  to  the  warmth  of  the  official 
occasion,  by  parading  what  was  simply  the  Executive  transmis 
sion  of  Congressional  resolutions  of  sympathy  for  France,  in 
order  to  heighten  the  impression  of  international  friendship. 
Monroe  was  informed,  in  terms  implying  a  mild  official  cen 
sure,  that  demonstrations  less  conspicuous  had  been  looked 
for;  that  his  instructions  did  not  justify  the  extreme  glow  of 
some  parts  of  his  address  ;  that  the  documents  accompanying 
the  Congressional  resolutions  ought  to  have  been  placed  in  no 
other  light,  so  far  as  the  President  was  concerned,  than  the 
execution  of  a  task  imposed  upon  him  specially  by  Congress; 
and  that,  avoiding  cause  of  offence  with  England  and  Spain, 
where  important  negotiations  were  on  foot,  he  ought  to  culti 
vate  the  friendship  of  France  with  zeal,  indeed,  but  without 
unnecessary  eclat. 

Long  before  receiving  this  communication  from  Philadel 
phia  Monroe  had  applied  himself  to  the  prescribed  duties 
of  his  mission,  which  sought  from  the  Committee  of  Safety 
reparation  for  the  spoliations  of  French  cruisers,  besides  a  re 
peal  of  specified  decrees  obnoxious  to  our  commerce.  These 
American  complaints  were  founded  largely  on  the  Bordeaux 
embargo,  under  which  numerous  vessels  had  been  detained  at 
France  over  a  year;  also  the  furnishing  of  supplies  to  France 
and  St.  Domingo,  and  the  seizure  of  provision  ships  bound  to 
England,  where  payments  had  been  promised  by  the  French 
Government.  Little  dispute  had  here  arisen;  but  French 
dilatoriness,  and  the  dishonor  of  plain  engagements,  was  the 
standing  offence,  aggravated  as  it  was  by  embarrassments  in 
separable  from  ferocious  war  and  a  rule  of  madness.  There 
were  other  claims  founded  upon  infractions  of  the  French 
treaty  as  to  the  seizure  of  enemy's  goods  in  American  vessels; 
but  these  Monroe  presented  on  his  own  responsibility  with  re- 


1794.  MONROE  AT  FRANCE.  321 

markable  complaisance,  appealing  to  a  sense  of  interest  rather 
than  of  obligation;  a  course  he  sought  to  justify  to  his  own 
government  by  the  silence  of  his  instructions,  and  the  fear  lest 
France  might  ask  in  return  that  the  treaty  guarantee  of  her 
West  India  possessions  be  fulfilled  on  our  part. 

A  diplomatic  parley  ensued,  in  the  course  of  which  a  loan 
of  $5,000,000  was  asked  of  the  United  States  by  France  ;  this 
request  Monroe  referred  to  his  government  in  a 
zealous  letter,  showing  how  that  country  might  help 
us  through  a  war  with  Great  Britain.  At  length  the  French 
government  did  away  with  all  existing  en*barrassments  to 
American  commerce,  so  far  as  a  repeal  of  decrees  could  effect 
this,  and  the  transmission  of  orders  to  the  proper  bureau  for 
adjusting  American  claims  ;  though  in  truth,  as  this  untimely 
application  for  a  foreign  loan  might  have  indicated,  the  French 
government  was  too  much  distressed  for  money  in  the  prose 
cution  of  a  costly  war  to  render  it  likely  that  the  desired  rec 
ompense  would  be  speedily  afforded.  All  that  Monroe  asked 
for  was  yielded  in  form  willingly,  except  the  allowance  that 
American  vessels  should  protect  an  enemy's  goods  ;  as  to  which 
provision,  on  the  plea  that  English  property  would  thus  be  al 
lowed  an  advantage  which  Great  Britain  had  steadily  denied  to 
that  of  French  subjects,  the  Republic  did  not  wish  to  execute 
the  treaty  without  procuring  some  new  reciprocal  advantage. 

The  French  government  entertained,  all  the  while,  strong 
suspicions  that  negotiations  unfriendly  to  her  influence  in 
America  were  in  progress  between  Jay  and  Grenville,  but 
Monroe's  conduct  was  proof  convincing  that  he,  at  least,  played 
intentionally  no  double  part,  while  the  news  from  Fauchet  and 
the  United  States  besides  must  have  assured  the  Convention 
that  it  was  wise  policy  to  cultivate  a  good  understanding. 

To  Monroe's  obvious  misapprehension  of  the  secret  arrange 
ments  in  progress  across  the  Channel,  and  of  the  limitations  of 
his  own  functions,  Randolph,  the  Secretary  of  State,  certainly 
contributed  by  his  loose  and  vacillating  conduct.  The  criticism 
of  Monroe's  debut  as  a  minister,  was  accompanied  by  another, 
which,  prepared  under  the  scrutiny  of  Washington's  cold  eye, 
in  December,  further  disapproved  his  easy  condonation  of  the 
seizures  of  enemy's  goods,  France  had  made  in  disregard  of  her 


322  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

treaty  obligations  to  the  United  States,  harshly  as  they  might 
seem  to  bind  her  in  her  present  war  with  England.  And  yet 
the  only  letter  Monroe  had  as  yet  received  from  the  Secretary 
of  State  or  administration  was  written  September  25th,  in  a 
far  different  strain,  and  so  as  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  Jay 
mission  would  probably  fail,  while  that  at  Spain  was  at  a 
standstill  ;  which  letter,  moreover,  expressed  anti-British  sen 
timents,  and  reiterated  Monroe's  original  instructions  as  to 
France. 

By  early  January,  1795,  even  the  "free  ships,  free  goods  " 
admission  had  been  made  by  the  French  govern 
ment  as  the  United  States  desired,  and  it  seemed 
to  Monroe  as  though  he  had  accomplished  all  the  prime  ob 
jects  of  his  official  instructions;  for  he  had  been  directed  by 
the  President  to  make  no  new  treaty  with  France  without  ex 
plicit  orders,  and  as  to  a  revised  treaty  of  commerce,  to  say 
that  Fauchet  had  never  proposed  one.  While  the  administra 
tion  from  Philadelphia  expressed  pleasure  at  learning  that 
Monroe  was  pressing  our  claims,  it  became  silent  and  inatten 
tive  when  those  decrees  were  actually  repealed  and  France 
showed  a  decided  disposition  to  otherwise  assist  us.  Of  this 
the  true  reason  was  probably  (though  Monroe  chafed  in  igno 
rance  of  the  cause)  the  knowledge  on  the  President's  part  that 
Jay  had  negotiated  some  kind  of  a  convention,  the  unex 
pected  delay  in  receiving  that  important  document,  and, 
finally,  the  doubt  Washington  entertained  as  to  the  ultimate 
fate  of  this  disappointing  treaty  during  the  many  weeks  which 
elapsed  while  he  kept  its  contents  a  profound  secret. 

Monroe's  instructions  certainly  conveyed  the  idea,  indirectly 
expressed,  however,  that  Jay  was  not  empowered  to  make  any 
commercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  but  only  to  arrange 
grievances ;  and  finding  the  French  government  otherwise 
impressed  by  its  secret  information,  Monroe  had  warmly  sup 
ported  this  view  by  showing,  quite  undiplomatically,  however, 
extracts  from  his  own  dispatches.  Informed,  at  length,  by  the 
French  administration,  with  cold  suspicion,  that  only  a  copy 
of  the  Jay  treaty  would  satisfy  France  that  he  spoke  correctly, 
lie  sent  to  Jay  for  one.  This  Jay  quite  properly  refused  for 
such  a  purpose,  though  intimating  afterwards  a  willingness  to 


1795.  MONROE   AT    FRANCE.  323 

communicate  its  contents  orally  in  confidence  to  Monroe,  and 
finally  disclosing  by  his  messenger  a  slight  and  imperfect  sketch 
of  its  provisions  to  be  used  as  Monroe  desired. 

So  constant  was  the  danger  from  British  cruisers,  that  the 
transmission  of  dispatches  between  Paris  and  Philadelphia  had 
now  become  very  irregular.  Monroe  did  not  until  February, 
1795,  receive  the  official  disapproval  of  the  manner  of  his 
original  reception,  and  his  language  as  to  violated  articles  in 
the  treaty,  by  which  time,  notwithstanding  Monroe's  indiscre 
tion,  France  in  the  latter  respect  had  taken  the  course  our 
government  desired,  and  no  detriment  had  really  been  suffered 
by  his  conduct.  Early  in  June,  Paris,  much  distressed  for 
provisions,  received  accounts  that  the  British  government  had 
revived  its  order  for  seizing  provision  vessels,  and  there  came 
in  the  midst  of  this  panic,  about  the  middle  of  August,  Amer 
ican  newspapers  which  revealed  the  Jay  treaty  in  full.  Utterly 
disgusted  with  what  appeared  so  much  like  treachery  towards 
an  ancient  ally  and 'benefactor,  France  confided  no  longer  in 
the  friendly  expressions  of  the  United  States ;  and  yet  at  the 
same  time,  observing  the  popular  opposition  in  America,  re 
frained  for  a  time  from  ungentle  remonstrance. 

A  copy  of  the  British  treaty  had  been  communicated  by 
our  government,  soon  after  the  Senate  took  favorable  action, 
to  Adet,  the  new  French  minister  at  Philadelphia.  Adet 
complained  of  the  seizure  of  an  enemy's  goods  in  American 
vessels,  and  of  the  contraband  clauses  under  that  treaty,  as 
tending  peculiarly  to  favor  England  as  a  belligerent  above 
France ;  and,  also,  that  the  hospitality  therein  stipulated  for  Brit 
ish  ships  of  war  was  inconsistent  with  the  earlier  restrictions 
which  the  French  treaties  placed  upon  the  enemies  of  France. 
Randolph  in  reply  defended  the  construction  the  American 
government  had  put  upon  the  French  treaty,  the  candor  of 
the  American  administration,  and  the  general  right  which 
every  neutral  nation  enjoys  to  make  commercial  arrangements 
with  one  belligerent  without  consulting  the  wishes  of  another. 
Monroe  was  now  instructed  to  pursue  a  similar  line  of  argu 
ment  at  Paris,  and  make  the  treaty  as  palatable  to  France  as 
possible.  But  Monroe  was  of  too  frank  and  sincere  a  nature, 
and  besides  entered  too  deeply  into  the  French  sense  of  the 


324  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

business,  having  contributed  so  unwittingly  by  his  own  mis 
conceptions  of  Jay's  negotiations  to  delude  that  government, 
to  play  the  new  role  acceptably.  Believing,  as  he  did,  that 
he  had  been  used  to  carry  on  a  blind  with  France  while  a 
sharp  game  to  overreach  that  republic  was  playing  across  the 
Channel,  and  resenting  the  thought  that  Jay  should  have  been 
empowered  without  his  knowledge  to  form  a  commercial 
treaty  with  Great  Britain  in  the  midst  of  war,  and  at  a  time 
when  no  such  advance  was  made  to  France  by  the  United 
States,  and  her  own  advances  in  that  direction  to  anticipate 
such  a  contingency  were  received  with  indifference,  he  sulked 
in  the  fulfilment  of  his  new  instructions,  as  though  willing  to 
risk  his  diplomatic  office  upon  the  possible  failure  of  the  Jay 
treaty,  and  otherwise  leaving  Washington  to  recall  him,  if  he 
chose,  in  displeasure.  Randolph's  hesitancy  encouraged  such 
a  course,  and  as  Jay's  personal  correspondence  had  been  with 
the  Eastern  set  exclusively,  so  Monroe's  was  with  the  Vir 
ginian,  whence  the  sanguine  belief  on  his  part,  as  it  seems, 
that  the  House  would  yet  hamstring  the  treaty,  even  were  it 
ratified  by  the  President. 

Monroe's  disobedience  to  orders  at  this  point  is  indefensi 
ble.  His  only  true  course  was  to  resign  ;  but  he  afterwards  con 
tended  that  by  thus  remaining  he  not  only  stood  in  a  position 
to  vindicate  his  own  motives  better  (a  view  of  the  public  situ 
ation  which  he  always  kept  prominent),  but  was  actually  of 
material  service  in  preventing  France  from  hastening  to  harsh 
extremities.  The  policy  of  granting  an  American  loan  in 
order  to  procure  the  aid  of  the  French  army  and  navy  for 
pressing  our  claims  against  England,  Monroe  still  commended 
in  writing,  not  certain  that  it  might  not  be  granted  after  all. 

In  October  the  French  Convention  closed  its  labors  by 
transmitting  executive  authority  to  the  famous  Directory. 
Fauchet  had  just  returned  home  from  the  United  States,  burn 
ing  with  rage  over  the  Randolph  exposure,  the  President's 
determination  to  ratify  the  Jay  treaty,  and  affronts  he  had 
received  from  British  vessels  hovering  about  the  American 
coast  in  obstructing  his  departure  and  searching  his  baggage, 
despite  his  diplomatic  character.  About  December  1st  Mon 
roe  received  a  long  letter  from  Pickering,  Randolph's  new 


1795.  MONROE  AT  FRANCE.  525 

successor,  which  formally  announced  that  the  President  had 
ratified  the  English  treaty,  and  deliberately  stated  the  points 
upon  which  an  official  justification  to  France  was  to  be  made. 
Instead  of  using  the  arguments  of  this  letter  as  expected,  by 
way  of  mollifying  immediately  the  nation  to  wrhose  court  ho 
was  accredited  by  the  United  States,  Monroe  kept  the  dispatch 
to  himself  until  the  middle  of  the  following  February,  when, 
learning  accidentally  that  the  Directory  was  on  the  point  of 
sending  out  an  extraordinary  envoy  to  America  to  remon 
strate  as  preliminary  to  forcing  a  crisis,  he  set  about  his  task, 
and  so  caused  the  plan  to  be  abandoned.  Chiefly  for  Mon 
roe's  remissuess  in  this  respect,  though,  doubtless,  from  a  due 
consideration  of  the  unsatisfactory  tenor  of  his  whole  official 
conduct,  Pickering,  soon  after  the  treaty  appropriation  ques 
tion  had  been  disposed  of  in  the  House,  wrote  to  express  the 
President's  high  dissatisfaction  with  Monroe's  course,  and  in 
December,  1796,  Charles  C.  Pinckuey  arrived  at  Paris,  bear 
ing  dispatches  which  announced  Monroe's  recall  and  his  own 
appointment  as  minister  to  France  in  his  place. 

But  the  French  Directory  had  meantime  withheld  their 
own  expression  of  profound  dissatisfaction  with  the  course  of 
the  American  administration  only  long  enough  to  ascertain 
whether  that  same  treaty  appropriation  would  pass.  The 
British  treaty  having  gone  into  full  operation,  and  further 
diplomatic  remonstrance  being  useless,  Adet  was  recalled,  or 
rather  suspended,  in  August,  no  successor  to  the  American 
government  replacing  him  ;  and  French  official  gazettes  inti 
mated  presently,  in  threatening  language,  that  the  Directory 
were  determined  to  act  towards  the  commerce  of  neutral 
powers  in  the  same  manner  as  neutral  powers  permitted  others 
to  act  towards  them.* 

Adet's  official  career  in  this  country  was  not,  however,  per 
mitted  to  terminate  without  some  rhetorical  efforts  on  his  part 
to  influence  the  public  sentiment  against  Washington's  foreign 
policy.  It  certainly  seemed  hard  that  British  supplies  and 
articles  contraband,  per  se,  for  prosecuting  the  conquest  of  the 


*  As  to  Monroe's  mission  and  recall  see  U.  S.   Dipl.  (,'OIT.  ;  4  llil- 
dreth.     See  also  Monroe's  published  Defence  of  hi*  conduct. 


326  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

French  St.  Domingo  should  be  passing  at  this  time  from 
America  in  the  expectation  that  they  would  go  safely  under 
the  neutral  rule  to  which  France  but  not  Great  Britain  was 
bound  by  treaty  with  us;  and  that  the  sale  of  French  prizes 
in  American  ports,  hitherto  permitted,  was  now  forbidden,  as 
though  the  British  treaty  had  converted  the  administration  to 
a  new  construction  of  its  French  obligations.  Adet,  having 
vainly  sought  redress  from  our  government  on  these  and  sim 
ilar  points,  began  publishing  his  dispatches  in  Bache's  Aurora 
at  the  same  time  he  transmitted  them  to  the  American  Secre 
tary  of  State.  In  the  name  of  the  French  Directory  he  called 
upon  Frenchmen  resident  in  America,  through  the  opposition 
papers,  to  mount  the  tricolored  cockade.  And  his  last  ful- 
miuation  in  November,  which  announced  to  the  American  peo 
ple  the  suspension  of  his  ministerial  functions  by  the  Direc 
tory,  stated  this  to  be  an  expression  for  what  the  French  gov 
ernment  considered  a  new  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  enemy 
of  France.  In  this  letter  he  threw  the  blame  upon  the  Amer 
ican*  government,  and  adjured  the  American  people  by  pa 
thetic  recollections  of  the  generosity  of  Frenchmen  and  the 
tyranny  of  Great  Britain  in  Revolutionary  days  to  consider 
this  procedure  as  only  a  mark  of  just  discontent,  "  to  last  un 
til  the  government  of  the  United  States  should  return  to  sen 
timents  and  measures  more  conformable  to  the  interests  of  the 
alliance  and  the  sworn  friendship  between  the  two  nations."* 
All  of  these  popular  appeals  were  in  that  ardent,  hysterical 
style  of  expression  which,  in  the  course  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  had  now  become  almost  inseparable  from  the  public  corre 
spondence  of  that  country. 

Adet  might  possibly  have  taken  to  this  strange  channel  of 
diplomatic  influence  because  affronted  with  the  Secretary  of 
State,  for  Pickering's  letters  to  him,  by  the  admission  of 
his  own  party  friendsj"  had  an  epigrammatic  sharpness  and 
scornfulness  of  tone  calculated  to  offend  ;  nor  was  the  line  of 


*  See  newspapers  of  the  day;  4  Hildreth. 

f  >See  writings  of  Hamilton  and  Fisher  Ames,  for  instance,  at  this 
date. 


1796.  PRESIDENTIAL   CANVASS.  327 

his  argument  always  logical.  But  the  main  design  of  the 
French  minister,  acting  under  official  instructions  as  we  may 
well  conceive,  was  evidently  to  influence  the  Presidential  can 
vass,  which  by  this  time  had  become  exceedingly  close,  the 
electoral  choice  coming  early  in  December.  As  early  as  June 
it  had  been  publicly  announced  that  Washington  would  retire 
at  the  end  of  his  present  magistracy,  and  the  leaders  of  both 
parties  made  preparations  accordingly. 

Jay  had  not  been  put  into  the  governor's  chair  of  New 
York  without  some  forethought  of  the  Federal  successorship  to 
Washington  ;  but  the  treaty  sank  him  out  of  view  as  a  Presi 
dential  candidate.  Hamilton  accepted  his  true  place  as  the 
Warwick  of  his  party,  manifestly  unavailable  as  a  popular 
candidate  for  any  office.  This  left  the  field  clear  to  John 
Adams,  so  far  as  Federalists  might  bestow  the  Presidential 
office,  provided  conspicuousness  of  merit,  popular  strength, 
or  present  official  rank  in  the  line  of  promotion  could  serve 
as  a  test.  Adams  had  gained  much  of  late  years  with  the 
American  people  ;  toning  down,  as  he  did,  in  his  style  of  living, 
avoiding  public  controversies,  and  having  to  incur  none  of  the 
odium  or  responsibility  attached  to  the  late  conduct  of  foreign 
affairs.  But  the  Federal  leaders  in  and  out  of  the  Senate 
who  had  been  brought  into  close  relations  with  him  at  the 
seat  of  government  perceived  Adams  to  be  irritable  and 
headstrong,  as  well  as  a  vigorous  upholder  of  executive  inde 
pendence,  and  one  whose  views  on  foreign,  banking  and  fund 
ing  questions  were  not  always  coincident  with  their  own. 
Dreading  such  a  chieftain  to  lead  the  party,  and  yet  unable 
to  break  from  him  openly,  they  set  themselves  in  secret  to 
scheming  his  defeat;  and,  on  Hamilton's  advice,  the  plan  was 
to  combine  Adams  with  a  popular  Southern  candidate  nomi 
nally  selected  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  and  then,  after  the 
Federal  electors  had  been  chosen,  prevail  upon  those  of  the 
North  to  vote  for  the  two  equally  ;  by  which  means,  could  the 
second  candidate  get  a  scattered  vote  in  his  own  section,  he 
would  come  in  first,  and  make  the  more  manageable  President. 
After  casting  about,  the  leaders  fixed  upon  Thomas  Pinckney, 
who  now  returned  to  his  native  land  to  receive  great  applause 


328  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

for  negotiating  the  Spanish  treaty.  And  so  the  Federalist 
names  put  forward  were  those  of  Adams  and  Piuckney.* 

The  Republicans,  hitherto  overborne  as  a  national  party, 
had  but  one  strong  candidate,  Jefferson,  and  him  they  early 
agreed  to  push,  hoping  to  carry  him  by  force  of  his  great  per 
sonal  popularity  into  either  the  first  office  or  the  second. f  To 
prevent  Jefferson  from  succeeding  to  either  place  was  the  os 
tensible  reason  given  by  Hamilton  and  his  friends  for  per 
suading  Federalist  electors  of  the  North  to  throw  their  votes 
equally  for  Adams  and  Pinckney.J 

All  of  these  political  arrangements  depended  of  course 
upon  Washington's  probable  retirement;  for  had  he  indicated 
the  wish  to  remain  iu  office  he  would  without  doubt  have  been 
re-elected  for  a  third  term.  Bache's  Aurora  and  the  other  oppo 
sition  papers  had  kept  up  their  attacks  upon  him  steadily, 
with  great  virulence,  reviewing  his  foreign  policy  of  1793  with 
the  help  of  cabinet  documents  now  first  brought  to  light.  Jef 
ferson,  who  knew  that  his  own  political  enemies  were  trying  to 
prevail  upon  Washington  to  publicly  denounce  him,  and  who 
feared  lest  this  disclosure  of  confidential  papers  might  have 
been  attributed  to  himself,  hastened  to  disclaim  all  agency  in 
their  publication,  and,  if  possible,  to  establish  a  claim  to  Wash 
ington's  personal  confidence  consistent  with  his  own  political 
self-respect.§ 

*  Patrick  Henry,  who  hud  become  a  supporter  of  Washington's 
policy,  was  first  thought  of.  See  Hamilton's  Correspondence,  May, 
1796. 

f  See  2  Madison's  Writings,  83,  103. 

J  Hamilton's  Writings  show  plainly  that  he  disliked  Adams  and  was 
quite  willing  Pinckney  should  come  in  first.  See  Writings,  May,  1796  ; 
also  the  admission  in  his  pamphlet  against  Adams  in  1800. 

$  Jefferson's  Works,  June  19th,  1796.  In  this  letter  Jefferson  re 
minds  Washington  of  his  own  rule  never  to  write  for  the  public  press, 
and  alludes  to  a  miserable  tergiversator  (General  Harry  Lee)  who  en 
deavors  to  sow  tares  u  by  representing  me  as  still  engaged  in  the  bustle 
of  politics  and  in  turbulence  and  intrigue  against  the  government,"  and 
is  "dirtily  employed  in  sifting  the  conversations  of  my  table."  "Po 
litical  conversations,"  lie  continues,  "I  really  dislike,  and  therefore 
avoid  where  I  can  do  so  without  affectation.  But  when  urged  by 
others  I  have  never  conceived  that  having  been  in  public  life  requires 
me  to  belie  my  sentiments,  or  even  to  conceal  them.  When  I  am  led 


1796.  WASHINGTON    AND    JEFFERSON.  329 

Washington's  reply,  though  not  unkindly  expressed,  and  ac 
quitting  Jefferson  of  blame  in  the  present  instance,*  betrayed 
a  strange  agitation,  besides  the  decided  indisposition  to  admit 
a  continuance  of  confidence  on  Jefferson's  terms. f  The  tone 
of  Jefferson's  letter  had  apparently  displeased  him  ;  from  the 
opposition  party  he  had  suffered  much,  and  the  newspaper  at 
tacks  upon  his  administration  stung  like  lashes  upon  a  bare 
back.  In  that  letter  Jefferson  had  indiscreetly  preferred  a 
request  for  copies  of  certain  cabinet  opinions  by  Hamilton 
and  Knox  as  a  means  of  political  offence  or  defence,  they  hav 
ing  copies  of  his  opinion,  and  to  this  the  President  made  no 
response.  Washington,  indeed,  had  nothing  but  disgust  for 
the  present  inevitable  strife  of  parties,  which  he  had  labored 
faithfully  to  appease,  and  much  of  the  responsibility  for  which 
he  put  upon  his  former  secretary. 

But  Jefferson  was  not  anti-British   more  than   his  present 


by  conversation  to  express  them,  I  do  it  with  the  same  independence 
here  which  I  have  practiced  everywhere,  and  which  is  inseparable  from 
my  nature." 

*  Washington  here  observes  that  he  knows  the  source  of  the  Aurora 
publication.     Randolph  is  probably  referred  to. 

f  See  Washington's  Writings,  July  Gth.  lie  replies  as  follows:  "As 
you  have  mentioned  the  subject  yourself,  it  would  not  be  frank,  candid, 
or  friendly  to  conceal  that  your  conduct  has  been  represented  as  derogat 
ing  from  that  opinion  I  had  conceived  you  entertained  of  me ;  that  to 
your  particular  friends  and  connections  you  have  described  and  they 
have  denounced  me  as  a  person  under  a  dangerous  influence,  and  that,  if 
I  would  listen  more  to  some  other  opinions,  all  would  be  well.  My  an 
swer  invariably  has  been  that  I  had  never  discovered  anything  in  the 
conduct  of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  raise  suspicions  in  my  mind  of  his  insincerity ; 
that,  if  he  would  retrace  my  public  conduct  while  he  was  in  the  adminis 
tration,  abundant  proofs  would  occur  to  him  that  truth  and  right  decis 
ions  were  the  sole  object  of  my  pursuit;  that  there  wore  as  many  in 
stances  within  his  own  knowledge  of  my  having  decided  against  as  in 
favor  of  the  person  alluded  to  (Hamilton);  and,  moreover,  that  I  was 
no  believer  in  the  infallibility  of  the  politics  or  measures  of  any  man 
living.  In  short,  that  I  was  no  party  man  myself,  and  that  the  first 
wish  of  my  heart  was,  if  parties  did  exist,  to  reconcile  them."  The 
rest  of  this  letter  (which  ends  abruptly)  warmly  rebukes  the  bitterness 
of  party  spirit  and  the  personal  accusations  made  against  himself  in  the 
press  of  the  day,  in  terms  scarcely  applicable  to  a  Nero,  a  defaulter,  or 
a  common  pickpocket. 
VOL.  i.— 28 


330  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

successor  in  the  Cabinet  was  anti-French.  Jay  inclined  as 
little  to  the  fraternal  hug  as  Monroe  to  the  dinner-parties  of 
earls  and  barons  ;  and  Washington  had  balanced  himself  these 
past  few  years  upon  the  hair-line  of  international  neutrality, 
curbing  his  own  emotions  while  the  hearts  of  his  fellow-coun 
trymen  went  out  warmly  for  the  most  part  to  this  momentous 
European  struggle,  enlisted  on  one  side  or  the  other.  There 
was  a  strong  undertow  to  Jefferson's  nature  hard  to  fathom, 
which  those  who  understood  not  the  ideas  he  professed,  and 
thought  him  an  atheist  and  fanatic,  took  for  granted  flowed 
counter.  No  man  of  his  day  was  so  persistently  charged  by 
political  foes  with  hypocrisy  and  inordinate  ambition,  not 
withstanding  political  behavior  remarkably  consistent  in  its 
main  direction,  and  a  disposition  apparently  so  indifferent, 
nay,  averse,  to  holding  office  that  those  who  tendered  it  even 
now  had  to  woo  him  like  anxious  lovers.  Jefferson's  theory 
of  public  station  stripped  it  so  bare  of  pomp,  distinctions,  and 
emoluments  that  the  desire  of  his  own  personal  elevation  must 
have  been  well  subordinated  to  the  wider  plan  of  influencing 
the  American  Republic  in  the  new  direction  of  equal  rights  and 
simplicity  of  administration.  Such  an  influence  he  strove  to 
exert,  but  left  the  office  to  take  care  of  itself,  always  advanc 
ing  the  host  he  had  commanded,  and  never  knowing  what  it 
was  to  have  a  rival  commander.  If  a  hypocrite  or  man  of 
duplicity,  the  duplicity  consisted,  not  in  pretending  to  political 
principles  falsely,  but  rather  in  a  crafty  and  silent  persever 
ance  in  his  objects  ;  for  working  against  opponents,  making 
strong  combinations,  sowing  seed  while  others  slept,  he  all 
the  while  preserved  an  imperturbable  and  careless  demeanor. 
The  faults  of  Jefferson's  character  may  be  traced  as  he  mounts 
higher;  but  his  gradual  fall  from  Washington's  confidence, 
which  the  candid  cannot  deny,  should  be  attributed  to  pre 
cisely  that  course  of  political  opposition  and  distrust  on  his 
own  part  which  Washington  had  in  his  own  letter  set  forth 
as  represented  by  others,  which  he  could  not  tolerate,  and 
which  Jefferson  himself  could  not  controvert.  Jefferson's  let 
ter  indicates  his  own  position  ;  and  his  insincerity,  if  such  one 
must  term  it,  consisted  in  indirect  and  picturesque  allusions  to 
the  President  in  conversations  and  private  letters,  and  the  de- 


1796.  WASHINGTON   AND   JEFFERSON.  331 

Dunciation  of  political  decisions,  without  impugning  the  purity 
of  Washington's  motives,  rather  than  that  coarse  and  direct 
style  of  personal  vituperation  in  which  such  papers  as  the 
Aurora  indulged.  Good  taste,  discrimination,  and  a  genu 
ine  personal  respect  for  one  with  whom  he  was  out  of  political 
sympathy  might  account  for  this,  for  he  was  at  the  same  time 
true  to  himself;  but  Jefferson's  enemies  would  attribute  it  to 
the  fear  of  risking  one's  own  popularity  by  openly  maligning 
one  whom  his  countrymen  idolized  to  the  last.* 

Washington's  theory  of  the  companionship  of  hearts,  in  a 
word,  refused  to  admit  any  distrust  of  his  political  judgment. 
His  long-continued  authority  and  military  habits  had  given 
him  such  pre-eminence  that  he  scorned  to  put  himself  on  the 
level  of  contentious  statesmen.  Their  advice  he  welcomed, 
whatever  it  might  be,  so  long  as  he  deliberated ;  but  to  his 
mind  a  public  action  once  performed  by  him,  upon  full  reflec 
tion  and  ample  counsel,  appeared  so  sacred  and  so  conscien 
tiously  undertaken  that  the  breath  of  censure  upon  it  seemed 
the  taint  of  a  personal  disloyalty. 

In  September  Washington  put  forth  a  farewell  address, 
which  lie  had  long  contemplated  issuing,  and  upon  which, 
with  the  aid  of  others,  he  had  labored  carefully.  In  words  of 
solemn  benediction,  and  free  from  all  strain  of  cant  or  parti 
sanship,  this  address  inculcated  political  maxims  of  whose 
force  experience  had  convinced  him,  and  warned  the  people 
against  the  dangers  of  geographical  parties,  of  the  spirit  of 
faction,  and  the  spirit  of  encroachment  upon  authority.  The 
most  apt  and  forcible  passage,  perhaps,  in  this  famous  and 
familiar  state  paper,  and  that  which  sank  deepest,  admonished 
his  countrymen  against  foreign  wiles  and  American  interven 
tion  in  the  affairs  of  Europe.  The  idea  of  detaching  this 
continent  wholly  and  forever  from  the  cabinet  ambitions  and 

*  No  later  letter  ever  passed  between  Washington  and  Jefferson,  says 
Sparks,  but  a  brief  note  on  an  unimportant  matter.  Sparks's  note,  Wash 
ington's  Writings,  1796.  But  the  political  alienation  previously  begun 
fairly  explains  this.  Jefferson's  presence  at  Washington's  farewell  din 
ner-party,  and  their  conduct  at  the  inauguration  of  Adams,  show  that 
there  was  no  decided  rupture  of  personal  relations  between  them. 


332  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

calculations  of  the  Old  World  over  the  balance  of  power  was 
not  as  yet  well  comprehended  by  his  fellow-citizens,  and  here 
Washington's  valedictory  left  an  abiding  impression  upon  the 
international  policy  of  the  United  States.* 

The  well-chosen  words  in  which  America's  venerated  cap 
tain  bade  farewell  to  public  station  hushed  faction  into  silence ; 
and,  the  last  rapids  past,  his  bark  went  fitly  down  to  a  rich 
sunset  through  smooth  waters,  applauding  multitudes  crowding 
the  banks,  and  parties  emulating  in  respect,  as  though  to 
borrow  glory  from  his  departing  radiance.  Addresses  from 
public  and  private  bodies  reached  Washington  through  the 
winter  from  all  quarters  of  the  Union,  couched  in  terms  of 
loyal  respect  and  affection.  The  legislatures  of  one  State  after 
another  responded  heartily  to  the  farewell  address,  several 
ordering  it  to  be  entered  at  length  upon  their  journals  ;  among 
the  rest  that  of  Virginia,  though  reserved  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
his  late  policy,  unanimously  expressing  respect  for  the  Presi 
dent's  person,  a  high  sense  of  his  exalted  services,  and  regret 
for  his  approaching  retirement. 

The  same  gratifying  spectacle  \ydsexlnbited  in  Congress, 
which,  reassembling  to  receive  his  last  communica 
tions,  took  heed  that  nothing  should  mar  the  har 
mony  of  a  last  intercourse.     A  small  squad  of  Republicans  in 
the  House  inclined,  indeed,  to  factiously  oppose  administration 
measures;  but  good  policy,  and  generous  emotion  besides,  led 
the  better  part,  in  compliance  with  Jefferson's  advice,  to  rest 
on  their  oars,  and,  recognizing  Washington's  immense  popu 
larity  with  the  country,  leave  him  to  go  out  with  eclat,  making 
no  further  issue  with  the  old  administration. 

In  the  Senate  various  resignations  had  occurred.  Oliver 
Ellsworth,  of  Connecticut,  had  already  taken  his  place  on  the 
Supreme  Bench  as  Chief  Justice ;  confirmed  to  that  position 
after  Justice  William  Gushing  had,  upon  Rutledge's  rejection, 
declined  a  promotion.  Rufus  King,  of  New  York,  had  been 

*  See  1 2  Washington's  Writings,  Sparks' s  note.  Madison  had  furnished 
a  draft  four  years  earlier,  upon  which  Washington  worked  at  intervals. 
Hamilton  was  Washington's  chief  assistant  in  the  new  composition, 
Washington  no  longer  corresponding  with  Madison. 


1796.  CONGRESS   MEETS.  333 

sent  on  the  English  mission  to  succeed  Thomas  Pinckney. 
Of  so  little  esteem  was  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate 
held  at  this  day,  that  both  the  Massachusetts  Senators,  Cabot 
and  Strong,  had  resigned  for  private  reasons,  and  Trurabull, 
of  Connecticut,  preferred  the  lieutenant-governorship  of  his 
State.  Other  vacancies  had  occurred  in  this  branch.  Several 
prominent  Federalists  had  in  consequence  been  transferred 
to  the  Senate  from  the  House.  The  new  Tennessee  Senators, 
William  Blount  and  William  Cocke,  took  their  seats  at  this 
session ;  but  destined  for  far  greater  honors  than  either  was 
Andrew  Jackson,  who  appeared  as  representative  of  the  new 
State  in  the  House,  and  a  member  opposed  ou  principle  to 
whatever  might  seem  to  eulogize  Washington's  administra 
tion.  He  is  described  as  tall  and  cadaverous  at  this  time, 
with  long  locks  of  hair  over  his  face  and  his  cue  behind  tied 
in  an  eelskin,  wearing  altogether  the  dress  and  air  rather  of 
a  backwoodsman  than  a  future  successor  of  the  high-toned 
magistrate  he  so  disparaged. 

Washington's  last  opening  message  to  Congress  was  devoted 
mainly  to  miscellaneous  schemes  of  a  character  likely  to  foster, 
what  in  his  mind  appeared  pre-eminent,  American  nation 
ality.  He  recommended  a  military  academy,  the  gradual  in 
crease  of  the  navy  and  a  board  for  encouraging  agriculture,  sug 
gestions  which  have  since  borne  fruit;  also  the  establishment 
of  a  national  university.  Attached  to  no  one  of  the  State  col 
leges  then  existing,  for  he  had  no  alma  mater,  he  had  set  his 
heart  upon  the  endowment  of  a  new  institution,  which,  estab 
lished  at  the  new  seat  of  government,  might  afford  the  highest 
educational  advantages  in  his  day  sought  abroad,  without  ex 
posing  American  youth  to  the  inseparable  dangers  of  dis 
sipation,  unsettled  habits,  and  monarchical  notions;  but  this 
cherished  design  has  never  been  realized.* 

There  was  little  legislation  at  this  session  beyond  supplying 
the  immediate  necessities  of  the  nation.  The  Fed-  i7%-97. 


'x~  Washington  left  a  legacy  in  his  will  in  aid  of  such  a  national  uni 
versity ;  but  Congress  never  inclined  strongly  to  its  generous  establish 
ment,  and  the  development  of  State  institutions  handsomely  endowed 
has  thus  far  proved  an  insuperable  obstacle;.  IJesides  arts,  sciences,  and 
literature,  his  plan  contemplated  a  political  training-school. 


334  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

eralists  were  not  stroogly  led  in  the  House,  feeling  the  loss 
of  old  members,  while  the  Republicans  inclined  to  division, 
some  opposing  administration  measures  on  the  plea  of  econ 
omy,  and  the  rest,  under  Madison,  inclining  to  a  pacific  sup 
port.  Wayne's  death  caused  the  major-generalship  to  b^ 
abolished,  and  Wilkinson,  a  brigadier,  became  commander  of 
the  army,  but  an  army  reduction  was  not  carried.  The  equip 
ment  of  the  three  Algerine  frigates  was  permitted  to  pass. 
But  a  bill  for  classifying  the  militia  failed,  and  Federal  meas 
ures  framed  upon  Washington's  kindly  recommendation  of  an 
increase  of  salaries  likewise  miscarried. 

The  Presidential  election  emphasized  Washington's  Ayarning 
against  geographical  parties,  for  it  showed  a  very  close  divi 
sion  in  this  direction.  In  every  State  there  had  been  a  vigor 
ous  contest  for  the  choice  of  electors,  all  of  whom  north  of 
Pennsylvania,  together  with  Delaware,  proved  Federalists. 
In  Massachusetts,  however,  a  Federal  legislature  filled  all  dis 
trict  vacancies  where  no  popular  choice  had  occurred,  while 
the  Connecticut  and  New  York  electors  were  chosen  entirely 
by  the  legislature,  so  that  sectional  strength  was  not  fully 
tested.  The  Pennsylvania  Federalists  overshot  their  mark  in 
procuring  a  legislative  act  which  required  Presidential  electors 
to  be  chosen  on  a  general  ticket  instead  of  by  districts,  which 
latter  the  Republicans  had  wished;  for,  to  their  chagrin,  the 
Republicans  unexpectedly  carried  the  State,  many  Quakers 
voting  the  Jefferson  ticket,  as  it  was  called,  over  the  Adams 

ticket,  from  a  desire  that  France  should  be  pacified. 

The  electoral  count  by  the  two  houses  of  Congress, 
which  on  this  occasion  took  place  in  the  Representatives'  cham 
ber,  showed  that  at  this  first  genuine  contention  of  political 
parties  for  the  great  national  offices  the  chieftain  of  one  party 
was  brought  in  as  President,  and  that  of  the  other  as  Vice- 
Presidenl,  an  anomalous  situation  truly;  and  so  close  was  the 
vote  of  electors,  moreover,  that  the  change  of  two  ballots  would 
have  thrown  the  Presidential  contest  into  the  House.  This  was  a 
warning  not  sufficiently  heeded.  The  plan  for  a  double  Fed 
eral  chance  as  between  Adams  and  Pinckney  had  failed,  for, 
as  it  happened,  the  New  England  electors,  in  obedience  to  the 


1796-97.  PRESIDENTIAL    KESULTS.  335 

• 

popular  wish,  stood  firmly  by  their  first  candidate,  and  thre\v 
away  on  their  second.* 

Jefferson,  who  had  prof  eased  the  greatest  indifference  for 
office,  no  sooner  perceived  the  closeness  of  the  votes  for  Presi 
dential  electors  than  he  declared  to  his  political  friends  that, 
should  the  choice  go  into  the  House,  he  wished  his  old  friend 
Adams  to  take  precedence  of  him.  This  the  Federalists,  who 
got  wind  of  it,  interpreted  into  a  deep-laid  design  to  cajole  the 
public  and  play  upon  the  jealousy  of  Adams.  Nor  is  it  un 
likely  Jefferson  hoped  to  detach  Adams  from  the  British  wing 
of  the  Federalist  party,  for  he  dispatched  a  private  letter,  ex 
posing  the  Adams  and  Pinckney  trick,  which  Madison  did  not 
think  it  prudent  to  deliver  to  the  President-elect.  With  tran 
quil  good-humor  Jefferson,  upon  the  electoral  announcement, 
felicitated  himself  on  his  escape  from  the  first  honors,  while 
Ames,  deploring  the  folly  of  this  constitutional  plan,  whereby 
the  chief  of  a  rival  party  was  placed  where  he  would  incur  no 
responsibility,  predicted,  with  clear  sagacity,  that  President 
and  Vice-President  would  now  jostle  four  years  like  two  suns 
in  the  meridian,  and  then  the  Vice  would  be  first.f 

Adams  presently  retired  from  the  Senate,  to  prepare  for 
assuming  his  new  station  ;  and  on  the  2d  of  March  Jefferson 
reached  Philadelphia,  hailed  with  artillery  as  "  the  friend  of 

;:"  The  whole  number  of  electoral  votes  was  138.  John  Adams  re 
ceived  71,  including  those  of  all  the  New  England  States,  and  of  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware ;  also  7  out  of  10  in  Maryland,  and  one 
each  from  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina.  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  received  68  ;  4  from  Maryland,  all  of  those  (except  the  vote  given 
Adams)  in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina,  and  South  Caro 
lina,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee.  Thomas  Pinckney  received 
59,  running  equally  with  Adams  in  Vermont,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
and  Delaware,  gaining  upon  him  8  votes  in  South  Carolina  and  1  in 
Pennsylvania,  hut  getting  3  less  in  Maryland  and  18  less  in  New  Hamp 
shire,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut.  Aaron  Burr  re 
ceived  30  votes ;  13  in  Pennsylvania,  3  in  Maryland,  1  in  Virginia,  (>  in 
North  Carolina,  besides  Kentucky  and  Tennessee ;  and  he  appears  to 
have  coquetted  with  both  parties,  and  to  have  been  distrusted  by  Repub 
licans.  The  scattering  votes  were  48,  Ellsworth  appearing  the  favorite 
of  these  on  the  Federal  side,  and  on  the  Republican,  Georgia  honoring 
Clinton,  and  Virginia  Samuel  Adams. 

f  See  correspondence  of  Ames,  Jefferson,  and  Madison,  1790-97. 


336  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

• 
the  people,"  though  he  had  deprecated  in  advance  being  made 

any  part  of  a  ceremony  upon  his  arrival.  Washington,  mean 
time,  welcomed  the  speedy  approach  of  inauguration-day  as 
the  weary  traveller  who  catches  sight  of  his  distant  home. 
His  birthday  had  this  February  been  celebrated  with  more 
spontaneous  enthusiasm  than  ever  before  ;  the  citizens  of  Phil 
adelphia  turned  out  in  a  long  procession,  headed  by  Gover 
nor  Miffliu  and  Chief  Justice  McKean,  to  tender  their  saluta 
tions ;  Federalist  and  Republican  families  graced  the  ball 
rooms  at  night  in  all  the  chief  cities  together,  the  wife  of  the 
President-elect  accepting  marked  honors  at  the  Boston  cele 
bration. 

On  the  3d  of  March  Washington  addressed  a  note  to  the 
State  Department,  which  denounced  as  spurious  a  collection 
of  letters  purporting  to  have  been  written  by  him  about  1776, 
which,  originally  printed  in  England,  had  been  lately  revived 
by  his  enemies  in  this  country  through  the  opposition  press, 
exhibiting  him  as  one  secretly  sick  of  the  American  cause. 
On  the  same  day  he  gave  a  farewell  dinner,  at  which  Adams, 
Jefferson,  and  Hamilton  were  all  present,  together  with  the 
cabinet  officers  and  their  ladies,  and  other  distinguished  guests. 
After  the  cloth  was  removed  he  filled  his  glass  and  s'aid : 
"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  this  is  the  last  time  I  shall  drink  your 
health  as  a  public  man  ;  I  do  it  with  sincerity,  wishing  you  all 
possible  happiness. ";i 

During  their  long  sojourn  at  Philadelphia — a  city  of  solid 
comfort,  however  unpretentious  in  appearance — the  represen 
tatives  of  the  nation  were  hospitably  entertained,  though  with 
perhaps  less  state  than  in  New  York.  Washington's  cream-col 
ored  chariot,  with  its  many  prancing  horses,  had  here  become  a 
familiar  sight,  and  the  levees  and  Lady  Washington's  receptions 
went  on  as  at  first.  Robert  Morris,  against  whom  New  Yorkers 
cherished  a  grudge  for  the  prominent  part  he  bore  in  procuring 


*  Newspapers  of  the  day  ;  5  Irving's  Life.  Bishop  White,  who  was 
present  at  the  dinner,  says  that  much  hilarity  had  prevailed  among  the 
guests,  but  upon  this  toast  all  gayety  was  checked,  and  there  were  signs 
of  visible  emotion  in  the  company. 


1797.  LIFE   AT   PHILADELPHIA.  337 


the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government  from  that  city,^ 
before  his  disastrous  failure,  the  most  princely  entertainer  of 
the  administration  in  Philadelphia.  With  less  quiet  elegance, 
but  more  gayety  in  their  train,  the  Binghams  followed.  The 
sprightly  and  graceful  Mrs.  Bingham,  who  was  the  wife  of  a 
Senator  and  daughter  of  Thomas  Willing,  a  prosperous  mer 
chant,  led  in  the  fashionable  dissipations  of  the  city,  occu 
pying  a  spacious  and  finely  furnished  mansion,  in  which  ap 
peared  the  first  white  marble  stairway  ever  seen  in  America. f 
The  Boudinots  made  the  centre  of  a  quiet  and  philanthropic 
set,  chiefly  composed  of  Quakers.  Secretary  Wolcott's  house 
was  a  favorite  one  with  New  England  members  of  Congress. 
Philadelphia's  conspicuous  jurists,  Sargeant,  Ingersoll,  Ship- 
pen,  Rawle,  Bradford,  and  Dallas,  ranked  high  at  the  Ameri 
can  bar;  Dr.  Rush,  a  hearty  abolitionist  and  the  trusted  friend 
of  our  first  three  Presidents,  and  Wistar  were  eminent  among 
medical  practitioners  of  the  old  school,  whose  system  recog 
nized  the  efficacy  of  calomel  and  jalap  in  large  doses  and  a 
free  use  of  the  lancet;  and  of  American  scientists  in  this  day 
none  deserved  better  than  the  versatile  Rittenhouse.  The 
"Old  Buttonwood"  (so  called  from  ancient  trees  which  stood 
at  the  entrance)  was  the  chief  Presbyterian  church  in  Philadel 
phia  ;  and  at  Christ  Church,  whose  chimes  had  tongued  each 
calendar  day,  civil  or  religious,  from  Colonial  times, — where 
Bishop  White  preached, — Washington  was  a  regular  Sunday 
attendant,  occupying  a  pew  in  the  centre  aisle,  which  is  still 
pointed  out  to  visitors. 

Cliques  and  social  rivalry  were  manifested  in  entertaining 
the  Presidential  circle  at  the  temporary  capital.  There  was 
an  old  "City  Dancing  Assembly,"  whose  aristocratic  mana- 

*  A  coarse  New  York  caricature,  in  1790,  exhibited  Morris  carrying 
away  Federal  Hall  on  his  shoulders,  while  the  devil  beckoned  the  way 
from  the  roof  of  Paulus  ITook  ferry. 

f  Willing,  formerly  the  partner  of  Morris,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
first  president  of  the  JJank  of  (he  United  States.  Of  his  beautiful 
daughters  Mrs.  Bingham  was  the  most  celebrated,  having  been  educated 
abroad.  Jefferson  admired  her,  and  Washington  gave  her  a  portrait 
of  himself.  She  died  from  sudden  illness  in  1801,  and  her  husband,  in 
his  distress,  left  America,  and  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  Europe,  where 
his  daughters  afterwards  married  persons  of  rank. 
VOL.  i — 29 


338  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  III. 

gers  drew  the  lines  so  as  to  exclude  some  wealthy  tradespeo 
ple  of  consequence,  who,  in  high  dudgeon,  organized  the  new 
"City  Dancing  Assembly"  for  their  set.  Both  assemblies 
undertook  in  1792  to  carry  off  the  palm  of  Washington's  birth- 
night  festivities,  the  new  assembly's  ball  being  given  Febru 
ary  22d,  and  that  of  the  old  assembly  on  the  21st,  but  the 
President  discreetly  attended  both. 

These  last  days  of  Washington's  Presidency  were  the  last 
days,  too,  of  our  republican  court,  for  the  American  first  so 
ciety  of  Washington's  day  in  leading  cities  was  more  care 
fully  filtrated  than  ever  since,  and  in  the  association  of  public 
men  submitted  less  to  the  levelling  clown  of  democratic  man 
ners  or  the  join  of  hands  in  the  mammon  dance  about  the 
golden  calf.  Nor  could  a  second  President  have  maintained 
such  independence  in  the  public  appointments  or  regulated 
his  official  intercourse  so  reservedly  without  being  thought  to 
presume  upon  his  public  station.  Under  Washington's  first 
successor  a  more  deadly  acerbity  of  politics  poisoned  the  cup 
of  Philadelphia  society,  and  then  came  the  migration  of  the 
Federal  government  to  a  wilderness  where  social  splendors 
were  impossible. 

Even  now  Philadelphia  and  New  York  were  filling  with 
imported  foreigners,  who  brought  with  them  new  fashions  and 
modified  American  tastes.  French  boarding-houses  were  mul 
tiplying  ;  French  refugees  taught  strange  dances,  strange  mu 
sic,  and  a  strange  language;  the  sans-culottes  vied  with  the 
old  Bourbon  style  of  powdered  wig  and  embroidered  gar 
ments.  Emigration  to  America  had  set  in  very  strongly  from 
Europe,  in  consequence  of  war,  persecution,  and  the  general 
disturbance  of  business  and  social  occupations.  Among  Eng 
lish  arrivals  were  Cooper  and  Dr.  Priestley,  the  latter  a  pure- 
minded  philosopher,  holding  liberal  views  in  politics  and  re 
ligion,  for  which  he  had  suffered  in  England,  but  whose  career 
in  this  country,  notwithstanding  he  was  publicly  hailed  as  to 
a  land  of  freedom  on  his  arrival,  was  not  wholly  free  from 
social  proscription.  From  the  continent  of  Europe  came  at 
this  period  Talleyrand,  De  Noailles,  Rochefoucauld  de  Lian- 
court,  Kosciusko,  and  Volney.  Louis  Philippe,  an  exile,  lived 
in  humble  quarters  in  Philadelphia,  Copley  the  younger, 


1797.  LIFE   AT   PHILADELPHIA.  339 

afterwards  Lord  Lyndhurst,  made  a  brief  visit,  giving  no 
sign  of  his  future  greatness.  Some  of  these  distinguished 
men  came  with  a  design  of  expatriating  themselves,  others  to 
seek  a  temporary  abode  only,  or  for  mere  travel  and  the  study 
of  political  institutions  which  interested  them.  Actors,  far 
mers,  sportsmen,  and  commercial  travellers  came  and  went, 
and  then  published  their  impressions  of  America.* 

The  place  in  which  Congress  held  session  for  ten  years, 
while  in  Philadelphia,  is  worthy  of  mention.  This  was  a 
plain  brick  building  at  the  southeast  corner  of  Sixth  and 
Chestnut  streets,  which  the  county  had  commenced  erecting 
in  1787  as  a  court-house,  but  which  was  seasonably  appropri 
ated  in  1790  to  the  accommodation  of  the  representatives  of 
the  Union  during  their  residence  in  the  city.  In  the  second 
story  of  this  building  the  Senate  occupied  a  large  south  room, 
at  the  lower  end  of  which  might  be  seen  the  Vice-President's 
seat  j  and  there  were  smaller  chambers,  probably  used  for 
state  and  committee  purposes,  on  the  same  floor.  The  Senate 
gallery,  when  finally  constructed,  was  on  the  north  side.  The 
Hall  of  Representatives,  which  was  a  much  larger  room  than 
the  Senate  Chamber,  and  served  better  the  purposes  of  a  joint 
session  of  the  two  houses,  covered  all  of  the  first  floor  of  this 
court-house  building,  and  was  differently  arranged.  The 
Speaker's  seat,  as  commonly  placed,  looked  east  instead  of 
north,  and  there  was  a  lobby  for  spectators  near  the  main 
entrance  extending  east  and  west,  between  which  and  the 
Speaker  were  four  narrow  desks  for  the  stenographers  of  the 
House  debates  to  use.  The  only  general  entrance  to  this 
building  for  spectators  was  by  Chestnut  Street,  and  from  the 
main  vestibule  at  the  outer  door  members  might  file  through 
the  lobby,  waylaid,  perhaps,  by  anxious  constituents  who  in 
quired  the  fate  of  measures  in  which  they  were  interested, 
and  thence  to  their  seats;  but  a  special  temporary  vestibule 

":f  Talleyrand  was  not  admitted  to  Washington's  levies  for  fear  of 
offending  the  French  government.  When  it  was  intimated,  however, 
that  he  might  have  a  private  interview  with  the  President,  he  said  : 
"If  I  cannot  enter  the  fiont  door  I  will  not  go  in  at  the  back."  See 
Griswold's  Repnblican  Court,  Westcott's  History  of  Philadelphia,  and 
Historic  Mansions,  newspapers  of  the  day,  etc. 


340  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  I.IT. 

appears  to  have  been  erected  midway  on  the  eastern  side  in 
order  to  give  them  a  private  access  to  their  hall. 

The  House  was  a  bustling  body,  and  often  turbulent,  with 
much  variety  in  personal  type;  and  Speaker  Dayton,  a 
large-boned  man,  of  vigorous  manner,  would  call  out  "order" 
in  a  voice  that  startled.  But  in  the  Senate  Chamber  all  was 
dignity,  courtesy,  and  moderation  ;  the  Senators,  never  more 
than  thirty-two  in  number  at  Philadelphia,  appeared  well 
powdered  and  in  rich  dress,  and  if  a  loud  whisper  disturbed 
the  member  who  had  the  floor  Vice-President  Adams  would 
restore  order  by  gently  tapping  with  his  silver  pencil-case 
upon  the  little  mahogany  table  which  stood  in  front  of  him. 
The  decoration  of  both  halls  of  Congress  was  simple,  and 
the  chair  of  the  presiding  officer  in  each  instance  was  plain 
and  without  canopy.* 

*  See  Westcott's  Historic  Mansions;  also  John  William  Wallace's 
Address,  1872,  Penn.  Hist.  Society ,  jwliich  cites  McKoy,  McAllister, 
and  others,  and  is  replete  with  entertaining  information  concerning  the 
historical  localities  of  Philadelphia.  "  Congress  Hall "  has  been  greatly 
altered  since  the  Federal  government  left  that  city. 


1797.  INAUGURATION   DAY.  341 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  ADAMS. 
SECTION  I. 

PERIOD  OF    FIFTH   CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1797-MARCH  3,  1799. 

JOHN  ADAMS  was  inaugurated  President  of  the  United 
States  in  the  Representatives'  chamber  of  the  Congress  Hall 
at  Philadelphia.  There  was  an  immense  crowd  in  attendance, 
many  ladies  occupying  the  seats  of  members,  and  the  Senators, 
the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  cabinet  officers,  and 
the  Spanish  minister  sat  in  distinguished  array.  Those  entitled 
to  places  of  special  honor  were  announced  by  the  doorkeeper 
as  they  entered  from  behind  and  approached  the  Speaker'^ 
desk.  Washington,  whose  coach  and  four  had  stopped  oppo 
site  the  door  of  Independence  Hall,  walked  through  an  ave 
nue  which  the  crowd  had  formed,  and  entered  the  Federal 
building  cheered  lustily.  The  inside  applause,  which  was 
deafening,  commenced  the  moment  he  entered  the  Federal 
hall,  as  his  name  was  called,  and  walked  less  deliberately  than 
usual  to  take  the  seat  assigned  him  on  the  right  of  the  Speak 
er's  chair  ;  it  was  remarked  that  he  seemed  less  self-possessed 
than  usual,  and  hurried  as  though  desirous  of  escaping  greater 
marks  of  respect  than  were  due  to  a  private  citizen.  Jeffer 
son,  who  had  taken  his  official  oath  as  Vice-President  at  11 
o'clock,  and  assumed  his  new  functions  over  the  Senate  in  an 
easy  and  rather  trifling  manner,  next  entered,  and,  separately 
announced  and  applauded,  proceeded  to  occupy  the  corre 
sponding  seat  on  the  left.  He  appeared  tall,  straight,  good- 
tempered  rather  than  imposing,  his  foxy  hair  very  slightly 
powdered.  Last  was  called  the  name  of  the  chief  man  of  the 
occasion,  the  new  President,  and  John  Adams  came  slowly 


342  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

down  the  aisle,  dressed  in  a  light-drab  suit,  with  his  hair  pow 
dered  and  in  a  bag.  He  bowed  on  each  side  in  response  to  the 
plaudits  which  greeted  him  as  he  advanced,  and  mounting  the 
platform  took  his  seat  in  the  Speaker's  chair.  Speaker  Day 
ton  sat  in  the  clerk's  seat  below.  At  high  noon  two  brass  field- 
pieces  stationed  in  Potter's  Field  fired  a  salute,  and  Adams 
rose,  bowed  to  different  sides  of  the  room,  and  delivered  his 
inaugural  address. 

This  address,  one  of  the  very  best  of  the  kind,  was  a  strong, 
fearless,  incisive  production,  quite  characteristic  of  the  author, 
evincing  an  admirable  comprehension  of  those  general  maxims 
•which  ought  to  serve  for  the  general  guidance  of  an  American 
administration,  and  at  the  same  time  vindicating  his  own  in 
flexible  attachment  to  free  government  and  the  Constitution. 
Here,  as  upon  the  recent  occasion  of  taking  his  leave  of  the 
Senate,  he  made  an  effort  to  dispel  the  old  calumny  that  he 
was  one  who  preferred  a  monarchy,  and  to  establish  his  title 
to  public  confidence  as  one  who  could  well  afford  to  stand 
upon  a  life-long  record  of  patriotic  service.  A  disposition  to 
delicate  dealing  with  State  governments  was  avowed  on  his 
part ;  an  impartial  regard  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  the 
whole  Union,  without  sectional  preferences ;  a  resolution  to  do 
justice  by  all  nations  while  avoiding  the  pestilence  of  foreign 
influence ;  a  desire  to  be  just  and  humane  in  internal  concerns, 
and  to  improve  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce ;  and, 
finally,  a  veneration  for  the  Christian  religion.  All  these  ideas 
were  conceived  and  expressed  in  a  comprehensive  and  catholic 
spirit. 

In  two  points  John  Adams  strained  his  emotions  in  order  to 
make  a  good  impression  on  his  audience.  Concerning  the 
French  nation  he  expressed  a  personal  esteem  on  his  part, 
formed  in  a  residence  of  seven  years  chiefly  among  them, 
besides  "a  sincere  desire  to  preserve  the  friendship  which  has 
been  so  much  for  the  honor  and  interest  of  both  nations."  And 
with  reference  to  his  predecessor  he  turned,  bowing  towards  the 
close,  to  pay  him  a  graceful  and  laudatory  tribute,  which  was 
greeted  with  acclamation,  all  the  audience  standing.  These 
were  the  two  themes  uppermost  in  men's  minds  on  this  occa 
sion. 


1797.  INAUGURATION   DAY.  343 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  speech  the  oath  of  office  was  admin 
istered  by  Ellsworth,  the  Chief  Justice,  Adams  making  the 
responses  with  fervor,  after  which  the  new  President  retired. 
An  amusing  strife  of  courtesy  now  ensued  between  Jefferson  and 
Washington  ;  the  former  attempting  in  vain  to  make  the  ex- 
President  take  precedence;  and  as  the  Vice-President  finally 
walked  up  the  aisle  with  Washington  behind  him,  a  loud 
shout  went  up ;  and  then  the  audience  jostled  and  rushed  to  the 
main  entrance  to  get  a  last  look  at  their  chief  of  men. 

Accompanied  by  Pickering,  Washington  walked  to  the 
hotel  where  his  successor  now  lodged,  for  the  purpose  of  pay 
ing  his  personal  respects,  a  crowd  pressing  after.  The  door 
was  closed,  but  it  presently  opened  again,  and  Washington 
stood  there  with  uncovered  head;  he  bowed  three  times  and 
slowly  retired,  and  then  the  crowd  gradually  dispersed,  most 
of  them  to  behold  him  no  more. 

A  farewell  banquet  was  given  the  ex-President  in  the 
evening  by  some  three  hundred  of  the  leading  inhabitants  of 
Philadelphia,  Thomas  Willing  presiding.  There  was  a  device 
prepared  to  surprise  the  guests.  The  rending  of  a  veil  dis 
covered  to  the  company,  when  all  were  seated,  an  emblematic 
painting  of  the  genius  of  America  on  a  pyramid  of  sixteen 
ascents.  At  her  side  was  an  altar  dedicated  to  Public  Grati 
tude,  over  which  she  held  a  scroll  inscribed  "  Valedictory." 
The  life-size  figure  of  Washington  appeared  in  this  picture 
descending  the  steps,  crowned  with  laurel  and  leaving  behind 
him  the  emblems  of  power,  while  his  hand  pointed  towards 
Mount  Veruou.* 

These  farewell  tokens,  which  to  a  remarkable  degree  must 
have  seemed  spontaneous/)-  made  this  inauguration-day  more  an 

*  See  newspapers  of  the  day  ;  Westcott's  Philadelphia. 

f  So  universal  was  the  veneration  inspired  by  Washington  on  his 
retirement,  that  great  indignation  was  felt,  because  in  Bachc's  Aurora  on 
March  6th  an  article  appeared  which  rejoiced  over  the  ending  of  Wash 
ington's  career,  as  that  of  one  who  had  "  carried  his  designs  against  the 
public  liberty  so  far  as  to  have  put  in  jeopardy  its  very  existence." 
This  celebrated  article,  which  began  with  Simeon's  ejaculation,  cost  the 
publisher  a  severe  beating,  and  he  found  it  necessary  besides  to  disavow 
responsibility  for  it  afterwards.  Dr.  Michael  Leib  was  probably  the 
author,  and  it  appeared  in  Bache's  absence. 


344  HISTORY   OJP   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

occasion  for  honoring  the  setting  than  the  rising  sun.  Not 
calmly  unconscious  of  the  inferior  meed  of  praise  which  had 
fallen  to  his  share  on  this  occasion,  nor  by  any  means  the 
submissive  disciple  he  appeared,  Adams  resolved  upon  an 
executive  career  which  should  not  suffer  by  comparison  with 
Washington's,  nor  cause  his  predecessor  to  be  greatly  missed 
from  the  helm. 

But  at  the  outset  he  made  a  grave  error,  namely,  that  of 
accepting  Washington's  cabinet  in  its  integrity  for  his  own.  A 
desire  to  indulge  the  prevailing  idolatry  to  its  full  measure 
may  have  led  him  to  this  conclusion,  or  a  procrastinating 
spirit,  or  reluctance  to  set  the  first  example  of  retiring  high 
counsellors  with  the  chief  executive  who  had  summoned  them  ; 
but  it  was  assuredly  no  hearty  desire  to  retain  them  in  the 
council:  Indeed,  a  more  unsuitable  set  of  co-workers  under 
such  a  President  as  Adams  could  not  well  be  conceived.  They 
were  men  without  a  public  following;  borrowing  their  sole 
lustre  from  Washington's  radiance;  unreliable  gangers  as  a 
whole  of  the  public  will  and  narrow  interpreters  of  public 
duty  ;  the  two  most  conspicuous  of  them  from  the  same  section 
of  the  country  as  Adams  himself ;  and  the  majority  at  least 
led  by  all  antecedents  to  look  to  Hamilton  for  inspiration,  re 
garding  the  new  President  not  as  the  one  to  whom  they  owed 
their  place  and  whom  they  must  faithfully  serve,  but  rather 
as  an  erratic  old  man,  whose  inaugural  betrayed  too  much 
French  complaisance,  and  whom  they,  with  external  assist 
ance,  must  keep  well-bitted.  And  Hamilton,  their  inspirer, 
was  the  one  of  all  in  the  party  whom  Adams  especially  dis 
liked,  now  that  electoral  grievances  were  fresh  in  his  mind. 

The  late  Executive  had  left  our  country  in  amicable  rela 
tions  with  the  foreign  powers,  France  only  excepted.  Nor  was 
it  certain  when  Washington  retired  from  office  that  affairs 
with  that  country  also  might  not  presently  be  composed. 
Adet,  the  French  minister,  had  remained  at  Philadelphia,  his 
functions  merely  suspended.  Nothing  positive  was  known  by 
March  4th  as  to  the  reception  of  Pinckuey,  our  new  envoy,  at 
Paris,  but  favorable  rumors  were  not  wanting.  Pickering,  in 
January,  had  published  a  letter  in  reply  to  Adet's  complaints 


1797.  ANXIETY   AS   TO   FEANCE.  345 

of  the  British  treaty,  which  upheld  the  course  the  Uuited 
States  had  pursued  more  temperately  than  in  his  former  cor 
respondence,  and  it  was  hoped  this  document  would  do  good 
abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  Much  anxiety  was  felt  neverthe 
less,  the  more  so  that  bulletins  announced  the  rapid  victories 
won  in  Austria  and  Upper  Italy  by  the  new  French  com 
mander,  Napoleon.  The  winter's  intelligence  from  Europe 
confirmed  the  purpose  of  France  to  crush,  if  she  could,  the 
commerce  of  her  deadly  foe,  and  that  she  looked  upon  the 
United  States  as  one  of  Britain's  best  customers,  and,  under 
the  new  treaty,  a  practical  ally.  Our  guarantee  of  her  French 
West  Indies  possessions,  whose  execution  under  the  treaty 
would  have  much  embarrassed  the  United  States,  France  did 
not  ask,  but,  instead,  proceeded  to  retaliate  upon  American 
neutral  commerce  to  the  West  Indies,  on  the  allegation  that 
the  Jay  treaty  was  a  violation  on  our  part  of  a  solemn  com 
pact,  whose  intent  had  been  to  put  France  on  a  footing  of  ad 
vantage,  not  disadvantage,  as  concerned  her  enemies. 

Scarcely  had  Washington  retired  to  his  plantation  and  the 
congenial  shades  of  Mount  Vernon  when  unofficial 

•  T  i       i   T-»I  •!     i    i    i  •        i  i       T-I  i  March  11-21. 

tidings  reached  Philadelphia  that  the  1  rench  gov 
ernment  had  refused  to  recognize  Pinckuey's  official  charac 
ter.     Official  dispatches  soon  confirmed  the  unwelcome  news, 
whereupon  a  proclamation  over  the  new  President's 
signature  convened  Congress  in  extraordinary  ses 
sion  at  Philadelphia  for  the  loth  of  May. 

We  have  seen  that  Charles  C.  Piuckuey  (an  elder  brother 
of  Thomas  Pinckuey)  reached  Paris  in  December,  1796, 
bringing  with  him  Monroe's  letters  of  recall  and  his  own  cre 
dentials.  On  the  day  after  his  arrival  Monroe 

Doc   9   179G 

waited  with  Pinckney  upon  the  French  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  De  la  Croix,  who  received  them  with   much 
hauteur,  but  promised  to  lay  the  credentials  of  the  new  envoy 
before  the  Directory.     The  usual  letters  of  hospitality,  which 
were  at  this  time  indispensable  to  the  personal  safety  of  stran 
gers  in  Paris,  were  promised  for  Pinckney  and  his  secretary. 
Monroe,  a  few  days  after,  received  formal  notifica 
tion  from  De  la  Croix  that  the  Directory  would  not 
receive  another   minister   plenipotentiary    from    the    United 


346  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

States  before  that  redress  of  grievances,  demanded  of  the 
American  government,  which  France  had  a  right  to  expect. 
But  while  Piuckney  was  here  studiously  ignored,  a  compli 
ment  was  paid  to  Monroe  himself,  and  De  la  Croix  added  the 
hope,  as  though  to  discriminate  between  the  people  of  the 
United  States  and  the  Washington  administration,  that  affec 
tion  might  still  subsist  between  the  French  Republic  and  the 
American  people. 

Piuckuey,  having  received  this  information  from  Monroe, 
sent  his  secretary  to  the  French  minister  with  a  letter, 
which  referred  delicately  to  the  slight  placed  upon 
himself,  and  asked  whether  the  Directory  desired  him  to  quit 
France  immediately,  or  would  permit  him  to  remain  until  he 
could  hear  from  America.  But  De  la  Croix  adroitly  evaded 
this  inquiry  by  sending  a  verbal  response  through  Pinckuey's 
secretary;  and  Pinckney  waited,  until  some  two  weeks  later 
he  was  given  to  understand  that,  as  a  stranger  remaining  in 
Paris  without  the  requisite  letters  of  hospitality,  he  was  ren 
dering  himself  liable  to  arrest. 

All  this  time  the  Directory,  while  sedulous  to  avoid  recog 
nizing  Pinckney  as  an  accredited  minister  from  the  United 
States,  refrained  from  proceeding  to  harsh  extremities,  or  even 
committing  themselves  to  writing;  their  object  being,  probably, 
to  await  Napoleon's  progress,  and  ascertain,  besides,  the  elec 
tion  results  for  President  in  America,  which  Adet  had  re 
mained  to  watch.  But  on  January  25th,  though  the  issue  of 
Washington's  successor  as  yet  remained  in  doubt,  intelligence 
had  reached  Paris  of  Napoleon's  brilliant  campaign  in  Upper 
Italy ;  and,  flushed  by  these  new  successes  of  the  French  arms, 
and  perceiving,  too,  the  firm  stand  taken  by  Washington  and 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  at  the  opening  of  the  session 
of  Congress  in  December,  the  Directory  determined 

T'in   ^5 

to  give  the  direct  affront  to  the  American  govern 
ment,  for  which   its   representative   had  been  waiting.     Ac 
cordingly  Piuckuey  received  formal  notification  from  De  la 
Croix  that   he   had  become  amenable  to  the  law, 
having  staid  at  Paris  nearly  two  months  without 
special  permission.      Upon  receipt  of  this  letter,  which  con- 


1797.  PINCKNEY    REJECTED.  347 

eluded  his  status,  Piockney  procured  his  passports  and  left  for 
Holland. 

But  Monroe  had  not  been  permitted  to  depart  without  the 
courtesy  of  a  farewell  reception,  so  conducted  as  to 

J  „,  Dec.  30, 179(5. 

manliest  more  clearly  than  ever  the  bent  or  the  I1  rencli 
Directory  to  detach  the  affections  of  America  from  the  adminis 
tration  in  power,  and,  while  affronting  Washington,  to  leave  the 
door  open  for  reconciliation  with  any  immediate  successor  who 
inclined  to  pursue  a  more  favorable  policy.  Monroe,  gratified 
by  such  marks  of  attention,  which  soothed  him  in  a  measure 
for  the  rebuke  his  own  government  had  administered,  im 
proved  the  moment  to  express  his  sense  of  the  Revolutionary 
services  rendered  by  France  to  America,  and  a  hope,  further 
more,  that  the  close  union  and  perfect  harmony  between  the 
two  nations  might  subsist,  which  it  had  been  the  sole  object  of 
his  mission  to  promote.  To  this  M.  de  Barras,  President  of 
the  Directory,  replied  in  fulsome  strain,  complimenting  Mon 
roe  as  one  who  had  ever  battled  for  principles  and  who  had 
known  his  country's  true  interests,  and  he  glorified  the  recent 
victories  of  France,  not  without  a  disdainful  fling  at  "the  con 
descension  of  the  American  government  to  the  wishes  of  her 
former  tyrants,"  and  the  patronizing  assurance  that  the  Amer 
ican  people  owed  their  liberty  to  France.* 

*  George  Ticknor  relates  that  Baron  Pichon,  who  had  at  this  time 
the  special  charge  of  Monroe's  matters  in  the  office  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
told  him  in  1837  that  Thomas  Paine,  who  lived  at  Monroe's  house  in 
Paris,  and  went  about  with  him  constantly,  had  too  much  influence  over 
him  ;  also  that  Monroe  injured  Pinckney  in  the  eyes  of  the  Directory  by 
insinuating  and  representing  him  as  an  aristocrat.  2  Ticknor's  Life, 
113.  That  Monroe  acted  too  much  like  a  party  Democrat  and  too  little 
as  an  official  representative  of  the  President  who  sent  him  cannot  be 
denied,  but  Pichon's  statements  ought  not  readily  to  be  accepted  in 
all  their  breadth.  Whatever  Monroe's  faults,  dissimulation  was  not  one 
of  them,  and  Pinckney,  in  his  dispatches  home,  acknowledged  Monroe's 
openness  and  candor,  au;l  said  that,  though  feeling  hurt  at  being  super 
seded,  he  had  left  nothing  undone  to  promote  the  objects  of  Pinckney's 
mission. 

As  for  Monroe's  valedictory,  the  testimony  indicates  that  the  Direc 
tory  knew  not  a  syllable  in  advance,  and  hence  that  the  remarks  of  De 
Barras  were  either  impromptu  or,  more  likely,  fashioned  upon  his  pre 
vious  conception  of  what  the  occasion  required. 


348  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  with  France  had  not 
been  unforeseen  in  America,  and  even  before  the  inauguration 
of  Adams  Hamilton  and  other  leaders  of  the  party  had  dis 
cussed  the  proper  course  of  action  for  the  new  administration 
in  such  a  contingency.  To  Hamilton — who  anticipated  war 
with  France,  but  clearly  perceived,  nevertheless,  that  without 
some  further  attempt  to  propitiate  that  republic  the  Federal 
ists  would  not  be  in  a  situation  to  command  the  confidence 
and  resources  of  the  whole  American  people,  and  who,  more 
over,  had  thought  it  highly  expedient  to  get  rid  of  the  anti- 
neutral  clauses  under  the  French  treaty,  by  a  mutual  consent, 
if  possible — the  best  plan  appeared  to  be  an  extraordinary 
commission  of  three  to  the  French  Republic.  He 
pressed  Madison  as  one  member,  because  of  his 
ability  and  the  necessity  of  some  character  for  such  a  com 
mission  influential  with  France,  Piuckney  as  a  sec 
ond,  because  his  feelings  should  not  be  wounded, 
and  for  the  third  some  strong  Federalist  like  Cabot,  to  make 
the  embassy  preponderate  against  Madison's  Gallicism.  But 
Pickering  and  Wolcott,  influential  from  their  official  station, 
were  inflexibly  opposed  to  Madison's  appointment,  while  the 
former  certainly  desired  no  accommodation  with  France,  but  a 
war  under  any  circumstances. 

It  so  happened  that  Adams,  whom  Hamilton  did  not  per 
sonally  accost  on  the  subject,  viewed  this  question  of  a  French 
mission  from  a  still  broader  standpoint,  and  with  an  honest 
desire  to  avoid  war.  Soon  after  his  inauguration  he  sought 
out  Jefferson  and  intimated  an  intention  of  sending  him  upon  a 
special  mission  to  Paris.  Jefferson  did  not  encourage  the  idea, 
however,  for  lie  thought  it  unbecoming  that  one  of  the  dignity 
of  Vice-President  should  go  abroad  as  a  diplomatist.  Adams 
then  broached  the  idea  of  nominating  Madison,  in  connection 
with  Piuckney  and  another.*  Jefferson  says  that  he  conveyed 
the  intelligence  to  Madison,  who  declined  as  he  had  expected 

*  The  "  other"  person  was  not  Cabot,  whose  name  several  leaders  had 
already  pressed  upon  Adams.  Adams  said  long  afterwards  it  was  Ham 
ilton,  but  other  circumstances  indicate  Gerry.  Knox  suggested  that 
Jefferson  should  be  sent  (after  this  interview,  however),  as  did  others.  See 
John  Adams's  Works,  March,  1797. 


1797.  POLICY   TOWARDS   FRANCE.  349 

him  to ;  and  as  for  the  President,  he  found  the  opposition  to  a 
Republican  appointment  so  strong  among  his  cabinet  advisers 
that  he  dropped  the  idea  of  his  own  accord.  It  would  not  be 
strange  if  the  two  astute  leaders  of  the  opposition  shrunk 
from  serving  upon  a  mission  whose  control  would  rest  in  Fed 
eral  colleagues,  and  heeded  the  warning  Monroe's  example 
afforded. 

Upon  reception  of  the  ill  news  from  Pinckuey,  whose  de 
meanor  all  parties  admitted  had  been  unexceptionable,  Pick 
ering  would  have  hastened  into  print  with  an  inflammable  state 
ment  of  the  whole  affair  to  fire  the  American  heart.  Receiving 
no  countenance  from  the  President  for  such  a  proceeding,  he 
secretly  appealed  to  Hamilton,  who  likewise  discouraged  him, 
saying  that  it  might  give  the  impression  of  adding  fuel  to  fire.* 

Steadily  operating  upon  the  recalcitrant  members  of  the 
cabinet  who  inclined  to  immediate  war,  Hamilton  at  length 
so  composed  their  minds  that  by  the  time  Adams  asked  writ 
ten  opinions  from  his  department  heads  Wolcott  and  Picker 
ing  both  advised  a  further  negotiation  with  France  ;  the  latter, 
however,  expressed  himself  as  though  this  were  merely  a  con 
cession  to  what  the  country  demanded,  and  deprecated  all 
"  fraternizing  words."  Mctlenry  was  quite  of  Hamilton's  opin 
ion,  while  Lee,  the  Attorney-General,  who  in  a  modest  way 
appears  to  have  served  the  new  President  with  constant  fidel 
ity,  declared  himself  plainly  in  favor  not  only  of  a  new  mission, 
but  of  doing  as  well  by  France  as  Great  Britain  in  diplomacy, 
even  to  the  extent,  if  necessary,  of  giving  up  the  "  free  goods" 
clause  which  had  now  become  so  vexatious  to  the  offended  belli 
gerent.  And  though  the  joint  mission  idea  was  still  distasteful 
to  Pickering  and  Wolcott,  who  had  proposed  various  names 
of  Federal  individuals  for  a  sole  embassy,  it  gained  strong 
ground  by  the  time  Congress  assembled. 

President  Adams  not  only  desired  an  honorable  accommo 
dation  with  France,  but  sought  to  pursue  it  by  generous 
means.  He  had  less  sincere  respect  for  the  French  cause,  we 
may  well  conceive,  than  his  inaugural  indicated  ;  for  he  posi 
tively  disliked  French  institutions  and  French  manners,  dis- 


Ilaimlton's  and  Adams's  Works,  March,  1797. 


350  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

believed  emphatically  in  the  French  revolution,  and  even  as 
to  the  services  France  claimed  to  have  rendered  the  cause 
of  American  independence,  had  been  wont  latterly  to  remark 
that  the  French  nation  was  as  much  under  obligation  to 
America  as  America  to  her.  History  shows,  nevertheless,  that 
the  present  obligation  rested  more  upon  the  United  States 
than  France,  and  that  our  country  had  profited  immeasurably 
by  that  close  alliance  of  former  years  which  the  old  treaty 
meant  to  perpetuate.  America's  present  attitude  to  France 
was  that,  undoubtedly,  of  one  who  had  gained  all  the  good 
that  such  an  alliance  could  procure,  and  was  now  asked  to 
make  sacrifice  under  it.  There  was  every  reason,  outside  of 
the  letter  of  a  compact,  why  the  United  States  should  wish  to 
keep  out  of  a  European  war  in  which  neutrality  was  just  and 
highly  for  American  interests.  We  could  consistently  excuse 
a  want  of  sympathy  with  the  French  cause,  perhaps,  though 
not  furnishing  a  legal  justification  for  absolving  ourselves 
from  the  inconvenient  trammels  of  the  parchment,  on  the 
plea  that  the  present  French  Republic  had  dethroned  the 
Bourbons  who  then  befriended  us,  that  its  present  violence 
and  inconstancy  alarmed  us,  that  we  should  have  fought  to 
the  end  for  freedom  even  without  the  aid  of  France,  and  that 
a  present  alliance  Against  European  kings  lacked  that  motive 
of  consideration  on  America's  side  which  the  humiliation  of 
George  III  in  1778  presented  to  Louis,  whose  intervention  on. 
our  behalf  had  been  by  no  means  disinterested. 

But  Adams,  whatever  his  theoretical  views,  was  fortified  in 
a  policy  of  European  neutrality  at  this  time,  and  impartiality 
to  France  as  against  her  foe,  by  a  just  regard  for  the  public 
interests,  the  public  honor,  and  the  responsibilities  of  his  high 
office ;  moreover,  by  the  force  of  a  keen  personal  resentment 
entertained  against  Great  Britain,  which  rankled  in  recollec 
tion  of  his  constant  affront  as  an  ambassador  to  London,  and 
was  aggravated  by  a  slight  his  son,  John  Quincy  Adams, 
had  lately  suffered  there  ;  and,  finally,  by  a  strong  desire  to 
purge  himself  of  all  suspicion  of  belonging  to  the  British 
faction. 

The  President  was  courageous  in  his  present  stand.  "  My 
entrance  into  office,"  he  writes  his  son,  "  is  marked  by  a  mis- 


1797.  POLICY   TOWARDS   FRANCE.  351 

understanding  with  France,  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  recon 
cile,  provided  that  no  violation  of  faith,  no  stain  upon  honor, 
is  exacted.  But  if  infidelity,  dishonor,  or  too  much  humilia 
tion  is  demanded,  France  shall  do  as  she  pleases  and  take  her 
own  course.  America  is  not  scared."* 

When  Congress  convened  in  extra  session,  responding  to 
his  proclamation,  the  President  struck  the  popular 
chord  by  a  spirited  opening  message  on  the  French 
troubles  and  the  rude  treatment  Pinckney  had  encountered. 
Adverting  to  that  recent  trait  in  French  diplomacy,  to  which 
Pinckney  himself  had  called  attention,  namely,  of  separating, 
in  sense,  the  American  people  from  their  government,  the 
President  declared  that  "such  attempts  ought  to  be  repelled 
with  a  decision  which  shall  convince  France  and  the  world 
that  we  are  not  a  degraded  people,  humiliated  under  a  colonial 
spirit  of  fear  and  sense  of  inferiority,  fitted  to  be  the  miser 
able  instruments  of  foreign  influence,  and  regardless  of  na 
tional  honor,  character,  and  interest."  He  expressed  his  in 
tention,  nevertheless,  to  send  a  new  mission  to  France,  but 
meanwhile  recommended  the  adoption  of  measures  of  defence 
for  emergencies,  and  especially  the  completion  of  the  naval 
force.  The  tone  of  this  message  was  firm,  expressive  of  the 
conviction  that  the  conduct  of  our  government  had  been  just 
and  impartial  to  foreign  nations. 

The  new  Senate  had  now  a  decided  Federal  majority,  which 
relieved  the  new  Vice-President  of  the  responsibility  of  giv 
ing  a  casting  vote,  from  which  Adams  had  been  by  no  means 
exempt.  Schuyler  once  more  appeared  from  New  York  in 
place  of  Burr.  From  the  House  Madison  and  Page,  of  the 
Virginia  delegation,  had  retired,  the  former  having  lately 
married  ;  but  with  Giles  and  Nicholas  still  in  their  seats,  Liv 
ingston  a  member,  and  Gallatin  rising  fast  to  pre-eminence, 
on  their  side,  the  Republicans  were  ably  led  in  that  branch. 
The  Federalists  greatly  missed  the  eloquent  Ames,  who,  leav 
ing  public  life  a  confirmed  invalid  when  his  fame  was  at  its 
height,  was  now  succeeded  from  the  Boston  district  by  Harri 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  March  31st,  1797. 


352  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

son  Gray  Otis,  an  orator  of  much  local  renown,  but  far  infe 
rior  for  winning  national  triumphs.  Some  of  the  most  capa 
ble  Federal  members  of  other  years  had  lately  been  trans 
ferred  from  the  House  to  the  Senate. 

Jonathan  Dayton  was  re-elected  Speaker  of  the  House,  and 
the  responses  to  the  President's  speech  in  both  branches  of 
Congress  appeared  in  full  accord  with  its  utterances.  Adet 
now  sailed  for  Europe,  having  sought  in  vain  to  influence  the 
attitude  of  the  new  administration  towards  France. 

The  more  courtly  members  from  Xew  England  looked  con 
temptuously  upon  a  rough,  under-sized  Irishman,  of  vulgar 
appearance,  named  Matthew  Lyon,  who  had  just  taken  his 
seat  in  the  House  as  a  rural  Republican  from  Vermont,  and 
who  made  himself  at  once  conspicuous  by  asking  to  be  ex 
cused  from  the  slavish  practice  of  waiting  on  the  President  in 
procession  for  presenting  the  House  answer.  Federalists 
joined  derisively  in  voting  to  grant  his  request,  as  though 
only  too  glad  to  leave  out  of  such  ceremonials  one  whose  pres 
ence  could  not  grace  them. 

This  Congress  showed  at  the  outset  a  more  decided  admin 
istration  majority  in  the  Senate  than  in  the  House,  and  more 
positive  leaders.  The  Briton-marked  Smith,  of  South  Caro 
lina,  who  conducted  the  House  Federalists  at  this  session  for 
the  first  and,  as  it  proved,  for  the  last  time,  was  an  elegant 
speaker,  but  not  a  man  of  broad  views  or  genial  manners  ;  and 
so  might  it  be  said,  in  the  former  respect,  of  his  colleague,  and 
next  in  influence,  Harper,  and  of  the  polished  Otis,  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  who  emulated  the  fame  of  an  illustrious  uncle 
without  the  quenchless  fire  or  the  independent  robust  convic 
tions  of  that  earlier  Otis,  who  had  willingly  resigned  a  lucra 
tive  office  under  the  Crown  to  become  the  advocate  of  his  op 
pressed  fellow-citizens. 

All  of  these  in  debating  the  House  answer  resented  strongly 
the  insult  to  Pinckney  as  having  been  intentionally  offered, 
and  Harper  insisted  in  a  speech  of  much  brilliancy,  but  fal 
lacious,  that  the  French  Republic  was  but  a  revival  of  that 
universal  empire  of  which  Louis  XIV  had  dreamed,  that 
France  wished  to  use  us  once  more  against  Great  Britain, 
and  that,  as  offence  over  the  Jay  treaty  was  a  mere  pretence 


1797.  TEMPER  OF  CONGRESS.  353 

on  her  part,  a  few  commercial  concessions  would  not  save  us 
from   war  with   her.     Nicholas,  on   the  other  side,  who  had 
sought   to   palliate   the   conduct  of  France,   moved   several 
amendments,  with   the  object  of  so  toning  down  the  House 
address  as  to  avoid  any  express  approval  of  the  policy  hitherto 
pursued  by  our  government,  or  the  use  of  language  irritating 
to  the  Directory,  but  by  a  close  vote,  48  to  52,  his 
motion  was  lost,  though  well  supported  by  Smith, 
of  Maryland,  who  had  now  become  a  party  Republican,  Liv 
ingston,  Giles,  and  others  of  the  opposition. 

But  to  the  House  address,  which,  as  finally  adopted,  Ham 
ilton  and  other  party  chieftains  thought  had  too  much  strut 
about  it,  Dayton  succeeded  in  procuring  the  insertion  of  a 
clause  which  professed  pleasure  at  the  proposed  renewal  of 
negotiations  with  France,  and  otherwise  tended  to  give  the 
House  answer  a  conciliatory  turn.  And  strong-tempered  as 
this  popular  branch  must  have  appeared  at  first,  while  the 
question  was  one  of  phrases  only,  and  the  strong  lead  of  the 
President's  opening  message  was  felt,  the  subsequent  proceed 
ings  of  the  session  were  by  no  means  correspondent  in  tone 
and  temper.  The  Federal  majority  in  the  House  was,  in  fact, 
quite  an  inconstant  and  equivocal  one.  While  Smith  would 
have  kept  the  party  to  the  point  of  severe  crimination, — for 
he  inclined  to  a  war  on  England's  behalf, — Dayton  and  the 
less  implacable  held  the  balance  of  power,  so  as  neither  to 
strengthen  them  decisively  nor  the  Republican  opposition 
whom  Gallatin  led.  "A  few  individuals,  of  no  fixed  system 
at  all,"  writes  Jefferson,  "governed  by  the  panic  or  the  prow 
ess  of  the  moment,  flap,  as  the  breeze  blows,  against  the  Re 
publican  or  the  aristocratic  bodies,  and  give  to  the  one  or  the 
other  a  preponderance  entirely  accidental."* 

The  latest  intelligence  from  Europe  was  well  calculated  to 
dampen  the  ardor  of  those  who  had  been  so  ready  at  first  to 
plunge  America  into  a  war  against  France.  Napoleon  inarched 
to  victory.  The  Emperor  of  Austria,  anxious  for  the  safety 
of  his  capital,  since  his  armies  had  been  defeated  in  succession 
under  Beaulieu,  Wurmser,  Alvinzi,and  the  Archduke  Charles, 


*  Jefferson's  Works,  June,  1797. 
VOL.  i.— 30 


354  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

and  there  was  danger  from  the  Prussian  alliance,  had  been 
forced  to  make  a  hasty  peace;  and  from  Lombardy  the  Cor- 
sican  commander  proceeded  to  make  rapid  conquest  of  Venice. 
King  had  written  Hamilton  from  London,  anticipating  these 
gloomy  events,  and  announcing  that  the  Bank  of  England 
had  stopped  specie  payments  in  the  midst  of  the  general  panic. 
The  fear  was  now  that  England  might  be  left  alone,  unable  to 
co-operate  with  Austria,  and  compelled  to  seek  her  peace.  A 
mutiny,  too,  broke  out  in  the  British  Channel  fleet,  just  as  the 
orders  came  to  prepare  for  sea ;  and  there  was  Irish  insurrec 
tion  besides.  The  longer  Congress  remained  in  session  this 
summer,  the  more  unwise  did  it  appear  for  America  to  be 
drawn  into  a  war  against  France  on  the  side  of  Great  Britain.* 
Bills  were  passed  before  adjournment  to  prohibit  the  outfit 
of  privateers,  whether  against  nations  in  amity  wifh  the  United 
States  or  against  citizens  of  the  United  States  ;f  to  forbid  the 
exportation  of  arms,  and  encourage  their  transportation 
hither; |  and  to  appropriate  for  fortifying  American  ports.§ 
These  were  all  purely  defensive  measures.  The  House  so  far 
acceded  to  the  President's  wish  for  a  navy  that  a  bill  passed 
Congress  to  complete  and  man  the  three  new  frigates,  United 
States,  Constitution,  and  Constellation. ||  The  Senate  would 
have  gone  further  than  this,  and  proposed,  in  fact,  to  buy 
more  armed  vessels,  to  send  them  out  with  the  frigates  as  con 
voys  to  our  merchant  vessels,  and  to  increase  the  regular 
army.  But  the  House  defeated  these  more  energetic  prepara 
tions  (which  Smith,  of  South  Carolina,  championed)  on  the 
ground  of  their  cost,  and  the  propriety  of  doing  nothing  to 
provoke  France  until  the  results  of  a  new  mission  could  be 
ascertained.  In  place  of  all  provisional  army  schemes  it  was 
enacted  that  80,000  militia  should  be  held  ready  to  march  at 
a  moment's  warning,  and  serve  three  months,  each  State  fur 
nishing  its  proper  quota.^f  A  further  project  for  permitting 

*  See  current  newspapers ;  Hamilton's  Writings,  March-June,  1797. 

f  Act  June  14th,  1797.  t  Act  June  14th,  1797. 

\  Act  June  23d,  1797.  ||  Act  July  1st,  1797. 

f  Act  June  24th,  1797.  The  Senate  defeated  its  own  bill  for  a  pro 
visional  army  of  15,000.  Other  bills  for  army  increase  originated  in 
the  House  and  failed  there. 


1797.  CONGRESSIONAL   RECORD.  355 

our  merchant  vessels  to  arm  failed,  chiefly  because  this  would 
be  likely  to  incite  a  war  on  the  ocean  and  precipitate  hos 
tilities. 

While  the  Republicans  of  Congress  exhibited  hostility  to  all 
centralizing  measures  which  tended  to  increase  unnecessarily 
the  expenditures  of  government,  thej  likewise  opposed  every 
increase  of  the  taxes.  Wolcott's  report  as  Secretary  of  tho 
Treasury  showed  that,  although  the  Federal  revenue  had  been 
progressively  increasing,  the  previous  grants  of  Congress  for 
completing  the  frigates  and  certain  other  purposes  had  proved 
insufficient,  and  that  no  provision  had  been  made  for  discharg 
ing  the  possible  awards  against  the  United  States  under  the 
British  treaty.  The  defensive  measures  of  the  present  session 
would  necessitate,  of  course,  an  additional  revenue.  It  was 
decided,  therefore,  to  increase  the  duty  on  imported  salt*  and 
to  impose  stamp  duties.f  The  excise  receipts  at  this  time 
were  only  about  one-thirteenth  part  of  those  derived  from  the 
customs.  But  so  plainly  unpopular  were  schemes  of  internal 
taxation  by  the  Federal  government,  that  the  operation  of 
the  new  stamp  act,  itself  temporary  in  terms,  was  postponed  to 
January,!  and  afterwards  to  the  following  Juue.§  A  new 
loan  of  $800,000,  at  a  rate  not  to  exceed  6  per  cent,  was  au 
thorized  for  anticipating  the  product  of  the  revenues. || 

Long  before  the  close  of  this  session  the  new  envoys  extra 
ordinary  to  France  had  been  fixed  upon,  nominated,  and  con 
firmed.  Turning  from  his  first  plan  of  a  piebald  commission, 
Adams  sent  into  the  Senate  the  names  of  three  Federalists: 
Charles  C.  Pinckney,  Francis  Dana,  formerly  in  the  diplo 
matic  service,  but  now  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts,  and 
John  Marshall,  of  Virginia.  But  Dana  declining  a  commis 
sion,  Elbridge  Gerry  was  appointed  in  his  place,  the  President 
pleasing  himself  by  the  latter  selection  better  than  his  Cabi 
net.  Gerry,  if  not  a  sound  Republican,  was  at  least  an  un 
sound  Federalist,  and  since  Pinckney  and  Marshall  were  both 
moderate  men,  the  commission  now  satisfied  all  who  sincerely 
desired  an  honest  accommodation  with  France.  Gerrv  was 


*  Act  July  8th,  1797.  f  Act  July  6th,  1797. 

t  See  Act  July  6th,  1797.  g  Act  December  15th,  1797. 

||  Act  July  8th,  1797. 


356  HISTOKY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

known  to  be  by  no  means  an  orthodox  politician  for  any 
party  to  trust,  quite  obstinate  and  opinionated  for  an  associate 
in  affairs,  and  too  often  disposed  to  risk  great  points  in  order 
to  secure  small  ones ;  but  his  tried  virtues,  his  probable  ac- 
ceptableness  to  France  and  ripeness  of  public  experience 
operated  strongly  in  his  favor  ;  and  Adams  regarded  him  at 
this  moment  with  the  confidence  of  an  old  political  friendship, 
cemented  by  the  recollection  that  Gerry  had  withheld  his 
second  electoral  vote  from  Jefferson  in  the  late  contest  lest 
Adams  should  fail  of  the  first  place.  Republican  votes  in 
the  Senate  aided  this  confirmation,  which  many  Federalists 
would  have  obstructed,  and  Gerry  and  Marshall  presently 
sailed  by  different  vessels  to  join  the  third  envoy  in  Hol 
land. 

As  the  treaty  of  1784  with  Prussia  was  about  to  expire,  the 
President  nominated  his  son,  John  Quincy  Adams,  to  Berlin,- 
by  transfer  from  Lisbon,  to  which  latter  court  Washington 
had  lately  accredited  him.  William  Vans  Murray  was  made 
his  successor  to  the  Hague,  and  William  Smith,  of  South 
Carolina,  the  House  leader,  received  the  vacant  mission  at 
Portugal.  A  fruitless  opposition  was  made  in  Congress  to 
these  diplomatic  changes,  as  though  the  full  establishment  at 
Berlin  and  Lisbon  was  a  needless  expense. 

Congress  adjourned  July  8th  to  the  following  November. 
There  was  now  a  long  lull  in  the  European  turmoil.  That 
France  respected  little  the  neutrality  of  other  nations,  and 
would,  if  she  could,  have  induced  the  United  States  to  make 
common  .cause  with  her  against  Great  Britain,  like  the  Bata- 
viau  republic,  is  quite  likely.  But  her  complaints,  not  un 
founded,  against  America  were  such  as  honorable  negotiation 
might  hope  to  remove;  and  these  were  chiefly  that  under  the 
Jay  arrangement  the  rules  of  contraband  provisions  and  free 
ships  not  making  free  goods  operated  so  as  to  render  the 
French  treaty  of  1778  burdensome  instead  of  beneficial  to 
France  in  the  present  European  war.  Deeper  still  rankled 
the  thought  that  from  the  position  of  decided  superiority 
which  the  old  alliance  meant  to  assure  her,  she  had  been 
pushed  down  to  the  side  of  the  old  antagonist,  and  must  not 


1797.  FIIANCE   IS   PETULANT.  357 

hope,  while  the  British  treaty  held  good,  to  rise  above  her,  but 
only  to  stand  equally  well  in  our  friendship. 

In  pursuance  of  her  recent  resolve  to  treat  the  United  States 
henceforth  as  they  had  treated  her,  France  now  sanctioned 
numerous  maritime  captures,  and  particularly  those  of  Amer 
ican  vessels  having  British  property  on  board.  As  these  losses 
fell  chiefly  upon  our  British  faction,  so  termed,  French  parti 
sans  in  this  country  were  not  greatly  angered.  But  other  pre 
texts  for  seizure  were  presently  set  up,  such  as  the  want  of  a 
vole  d'equipage,  or  official  list  of  the  crew,  which  it  was  claimed 
the  old  French  law  revived  against  American  vessels  now  that 
the  treaty  of  1778  had  been  disregarded.  Many  of  the  spolia 
tions  upon  American  commerce  were  made,  too,  by  privateers 
fitted  out  by  Americans,  and  commanded  by  citizens  who,  like 
Barney,  had  sought  to  divest  themselves  of  their  American 
allegiance  in  order  to  accept  French  commissions.  The  prize 
decisions  in  the  French  colonial  ports  of  the  West  Indies, 
Malaga,  and  Cadiz  were  strongly  biased  in  favor  of  sustain 
ing  each  capture,  while  the  home  prize  courts,  though  better 
constituted,  yielded  to  the  influence  of  an  executive  authority 
which  seemed  desirous  of  chastising  America  into  a  dishonor 
able  revocation  of  her  treaty  with  Great  Britain.  Condem 
nations  weve  made  upon  the  most  frivolous  pretexts,  and  not 
unfrequently  upon  a  corrupt  collusion  between  the  captor  and 
minister  of  justice. 

This  petulant  behavior,  like  that  of  some  jealous  mistress 
who  turns  from  passionately  upbraiding  her  unfaithful  lover 
to  making  his  new  attachment  miserable  as  possible,  could  not 
but  alienate  the  affection  of  America  farther  from  France  than 
ever.  Our  people  were  wearying  of  these  tears  and  hysterical 
reproaches,  these  sobs  of  unrequited  service.  Willing  to  do 
justice,  on  their  part  they  desired  to  be  quit  forever  of  such 
entanglements,  owing  their  liberties  henceforth  to  themselves. 
The  splendid  conquests  of  the  French  arms,  which  the  news 
by  every  packet  rendered  more  overwhelming,  might  paralyze 
Americans  with  terror  or  make  them  rejoice,  but  in  cither 
case  the  illusion  of  fraternity  and  the  rights  of  man  was  rap 
idly  dissolving;  France  and  the  United  States  had  no  longer 
a  common  interest. 


358  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Uuder  these  circumstances  the  new  drift  of  parties  tended 
rather  to  baud  citizens  together  who  utterly  distrusted  France 
and  French  policy,  and  who  now  regarded  the  injuries  alone 
we  suffered  from  her,  as  against  those  who  claimed  that  France 
had  been  wronged  by  the  British  treaty  and  ought  to  be  con 
ciliated.  The  French  and  American  flags,  which  had  long 
been  intertwined  in  the  coffee-room  in  New  York,  were  now 
removed  by  a  vote  of  the  proprietors.  Washington's  farewell 
warning  against  political  connections  with  the  ambitions  of 
Europe  had  left  a  popular  impression,  which  Adams  deepened 
by  his  inaugural.  Jefferson,  quick  to  discern  the  signs  of  the 
times,  and  no  worshipper  of  Napoleonism,  declared  it  quite 
freely  as  his  own  conviction  that  nothing  would  secure  us  in 
ternally  but  a  divorce,  in  all  but  commercial  arrangements, 
from  both  France  and  England.* 

Notwithstanding  their  closer  approach,  however,  on  the 
French  question,  there  was  great  acerbity  of  spirit  among  the 
party  leaders,  all  the  stronger,  perhaps,  from  the  desire  to 
maintain  party  organization  intact  under  discouraging  condi 
tions.  The  extra  session  had  been  a  violent  one,  and  nearly 
led  to  duels  between  members.  Men  of  different  politics  in 
Congress,  who  had  been  intimate  all  their  lives,  would  cross 
the  street  to  avoid  meeting,  and  turn  their  heads  another  way 
lest  they  should  be  obliged  to  touch  their  hats ;  not  separating, 
as  formerly,  the  business  of  Congress  from  that  of  society.")" 

For  this  condition  the  new  President  was  partly  responsible, 
whose  tiller  had  not  been  so  steadily  held  as  to  inspire  im 
plicit  confidence,  and  who  could  not  repel  cavillers  like  his 
predecessor.  The  opposition  papers,  which,  hoping  too  much 
favor  from  the  tone  of  his  inaugural,  had  begun  by  courting 
him,  fell  fiercely  to  attacking  him  the  moment  they  perceived 
that  he  was  a  party  President,  obliged  to  yield  to  advisers. 
They  called  him  the  President  of  three  votes, — an  epithet 
which  cut  Adams  to  the  quick, — and  claimed  that  but  for  the 
bad  faith  of  two  Pennsylvania  electors,  chosen  for  Republi- 

"x"  "I  can  scarcely  withhold  myself  from  joining  in  the  wish  of  Silas 
Deane,  that  there  were  an  ocean  of  fire  between  ns  and  the  Old  World." 
See  Jefferson's  Works,  May  13th  ;  June  21st,  1797. 

f  Jefferson's  Works,  June  24th,  1797. 


1797.  BITTERNESS   OF   PARTIES.  359 

cans,  Jefferson  would  have  been  President  in  his  seat.  His 
chief  cabinet  officers,  no  longer  restrained  to  clue  decorum, 
criticised  with  indecent  freedom,  and  took  offence  at  his  mod 
erate  appointments,*  while  such  men  as  Hamilton,  Jay,  and 
King  feared  Adams  would  be  betrayed  into  intemperate  con 
duct.  Federal  factious,  sent  adrift  from  their  former  mooring 
ground,  floated  hither  and  thither;  there  were  captains  in 
plenty,  but  the  old  fleet  commander  was  missed.  And  as 
though  to  leave  his  juniors  to  fall  to  loggerheads  over  their 
own  devices,  the  new  President  hastened  to  his  distant  home 
on  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  following  a  precedent  which 
Washington's  example  failed  to  make  commendable,  and 
which,  in  later  intervals,  as  we  shall  see,  produced  serious  al 
tercation.  | 

Ensconced  in  an  easy  dignity,  whence  he  might  observe 
every  political  move  on  the  board  without  joining  in  the  play, 
Jefferson  had  already  begun  to  marshal  well  the  opposition 
forces,  and  fulfil  his  part  as  their  accepted  leader.  His  popu 
larity  was  enhanced  by  the  cheerfulness  with  which  he  ac 
cepted  his  irresponsible  and  subordinate  official  station ;  and 
writing  gracefully,  as  occasion  served  him,  to  Gerry,  Samuel 
Adams,  Edward  Rutledge,  Pendleton,  Madison,  Gates,  Burr, 
and  others,  whether  within  or  without  his  party,  he  scattered 
seed  in  spots  which  Federalism  had  left  unsown.  Whatever 
he  might  do  or  say,  however,  his  political  opponents  were  un 
easy,  and  they  had  watched  with  marked  concern  the  friendly 

*  McIIcnry,  who,  as  Secretary  of  War,  could  not  draft  even  an  In 
dian  message  acceptable  to  Washington,  writes  complacently  to  Hamil 
ton  that  Adams's  opening  message  was  "  not  precisely  such  as  you  would 
have  written  ;  a  little  too  plain."  See  Hamilton's  Waitings ;  Life  of 
Pickering.  But  Washington  commended  the  address.  Adams  had  ap 
pointed  Gerry  against  the  wishes  of  his  Cabinet  and  on  his  personal  re 
sponsibility.  See  Cabot's  Life,  200,  204. 

f  In  the  course  of  correspondence  with  his  secretaries  during  this 
first  absence,  though  they  had  worked  for  so  short  a  period  under  him, 
Adams  is  perceived  growling  at  Congress  and  the  common  people,  com 
plaining  to  Wolcott  that  the  new  revenue  bill  sets  up  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  as  a  rival  to  the  President,  and  more  kindly,  yet  not  with 
persuasive  tact,  trying  to  make  the  inflexible  Pickering  share  the  confi 
dence  he  feels  in  Gerry.  See  8  John  Adams's  Works. 


360  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV, 

intercourse  subsisting  between  the  President  and  the  Vice- 
President  when  their  new  Federal  terms  began  together. 
That  intercourse  had  now  prudently  cooled.  And  as  a  means 
of  checking  Jefferson's  rising  popularity,  a  letter  came  most 
opportunely  to  light  early  in  May,  which  he  wrote  to  the 
Italian  Mazzei  a  year  before,  in  the  heat  of  the  Jay  treaty 
excitement.  This  famous  Mazzei  letter,  whose  text  was  some 
what  later  distorted  for  popular  effect  into  a  personal  on 
slaught  upon  Washington,  though  now  cited  less  specifically, 
expressed,  with  only  a  change  of  metaphors  and  phraseology, 
the  idea  quite  prominent  in  Jefferson's  other  contemporary 
writings,  to  wit,  that  "an  Anglican  monarchical  aristocratical 
party"  had  sprung  up  in  America,  whose  avowed  object  was 
"  to  draw  over  us  the  substance,  as  they  had  already  done  the 
forms,  of  the  British  government."  The  epistle,  purely  a  pri 
vate  one,  and  for  the  most  part  on  private  business,  had  been 
translated  from  English  into  Italian,  and  from  Italian  into 
French,  in  which  latter  condition,  and  with  material  inaccu 
racies,  the  Paris  Moniteur  published  it  as  the  text  for  a  fresh 
homily  upon  American  ingratitude,  and  whence  retranslated 
imperfectly  into  English  it  now  appeared  in  the  Minerva,  a 
leading  Federal  newspaper  in  New  York.  The  editor  of  the 
Minerva,  denouncing  these  sentiments  as  treasonable,  called 
upon  the  Vice-President  to  declare  whether  the  letter  was 
authentic  or  not.  Jefferson  perceived  that  a  correction  of  the 
diction  would  lead  him  into  an  open  condemnation  of  the 
birthdays,  levees,  processions  of  Congress,  and  inaugural 
pomps,  and  further  disliking  to  embroil  himself  with  party 
opponents  by  making  other  needful  explanations,  he  main 
tained  a  discreet  silence,  not  without  the  previous  sanction  of 
personal  friends.* 

*  See  Jefferson's  Works,  1796-97  ;  2  Madison's  Writings,  118.  The 
first  part  of  the  Mazzei  letter,  which  was  written  April  24th,  1796,  re 
lated  to  private  business,  as  did  the  closing  portion,  a  formal  proof  of 
Mrs.  Mazzei's  death,  who  was  interred  in  Jefferson's  graveyard,  having 
been  asked  of  him.  The  intermediate  portion  is  that  alluded  to  in  the 
text.  The  letter,  as  retranslated,  charged  the  Anglican  party  with  hav 
ing  drawn  over  us  the  "form"  of  the  British  government,  and  Jefferson 
properly  observed  to  Madison,  August  3d,  1797,  that  to  state  it  was 


1797.  MONROE'S  RETURN.  361 

Monroe  reached  Philadelphia  shortly  before  the  extra  ses 
sion  closed,  on  his  return  from  France.  The  precise  cause  of 

"forms "he  wrote  would  bring  jibout  a  personal  difference  between 
himself  and  Washington,  which  nothing  before  had  ever  done,  besides 
embroiling  him  with  the  country.  For  by  "forms"  he  referred  to  the 
birthdays,  levees,  etc.,  of  the  preceding  administration. 

The  denunciation  of  an  Anglican  party  contained  in  this  letter,  and 
the  allegation  of  a  British  form  of  government,  was  what  the  Federal 
newspapers  stigmatized  as  treasonable;  nor  without  reason,  as  they 
viewed  government  in  theory,  for  Jefferson  recounted  as  thus  ar 
rayed  against  the  main  body  of  our  citizens,  "  the  Executive,  the  judi- 
ciarv,  two  out  of  three  branches  of  the  legislature,  all  the  officers  of  the 
government,  all  who  want  to  be  officers,"  etc.  lie  adds:  "It  would 
give  you  a  fever  were  I  to  name  to  'you  the  apostates  who  have  gone 
over  to  these  heresies ;  men  who  were  Samsons  in  the  field  and  Solo 
mons  in  the  council,  but  who  have  had  their  heads  shorn  by  the  harlot 
England." 

This  is  manifestly  an  arraignment  of  the  great  body  of  Federalist 
leaders,  whether  of  civil  or  military  antecedents;  exaggerated  and,  of 
course,  imdiscrirninating.  At  this  time  it  appears  to  have  been  so  re 
garded.  But  it  became  later  so  much  more  convenient  for  Federalists  to 
use  this  letter  adroitly  as  specially  meaning  to  hold  up  Washington  as 
the  "shorn  Samson,"  and  thus  invoking  the  fetichism  of  that  age  for 
Jefferson's  annihilation,  that  they  appropriated  to  the  first  President 
an  uncomplimentary  passage,  which  others  not  popularly  worshipped 
would  more  properly  have  shared.  Hence,  too,  the  story  contrived 
after  Washington's  death,  that  the  Mazzei  letter  so  offended  the  father 
of  his  country  as  to  cause  a  last  breach  with  Jefferson ;  of  which  there 
is  not  the  slightest  proof,  but  rather  the  reverse.  See  the  Langhorne 
correspondence  of  March,  1798,  Washington's  Writings.  Both  the 
breach  and  his  own  intention  to  stigmatize  Washington  as  the  shorn 
Samson,  Jefferson  positively  denied  when  that  story  circulated  as  late 
as  1824.  Jefferson,  to  Van  Buren,  June  29th,  1824,  asserting  that  the 
allusion  intended  was  to  the  Cincinnati.  5  Ilildreth,  54,  perverts  Jef 
ferson's  reference  to  Washington  in  his  first  explanation  of  August  3d, 
1797,  to  Madison,  as  reference  to  that  letter  will  show. 

The  true  nature  of  Jefferson's  relations  with  Washington  at  this  pe 
riod  is  sufficiently  indicated,  ante,  p.  329.  And  not  to  leave  the  impres 
sion  that  in  the  heat  of  political  differences  Jefferson  affected  any  hypo 
critical  veneration  for  Washington,  beyond  what  he  could  possibly  have 
felt,  we  may  quote  his  letter  to  Madison,  of  nearly  the  same  date 
witli  that  to  Mazzei,  which  contains  a  really  pointed  allusion,  and  the 
most  severe  one,  besides,  that  Jefferson  ever  made  to  Washington's  policy 
in  his  correspondence.  Writing  of  the  "incomprehensible  acquiescence 
VOL.  I.— 31 


362  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV, 

his  removal  was  only  conjectured  by  his  friends;  and,  as  a 
mark  of  their  personal  sympathy,  a  public  dinner  was  given 
him,  at  which  Chief  Justice  McKean  presided.  Jefferson  and 
Speaker  Dayton  were  of  the  party.  This  attention  much 
offended  the  Cabinet;  and  when  Monroe  presently 
asked  the  Secretary  of  State  in  writing  what  were 
the  grounds  of  his  recall,  Pickering  declined  officially  to  state 
them,  referring  rather  crisply  to  the  change  that  had  oc 
curred  in  the  Chief  Magistracy  as  a  reason  for  this  refusal, 
and  to  the  general  right,  besides,  of  any  President  to  remove 
and  change  subordinates  at  pleasure  without  furnishing  his 
reasons.  Monroe  made  an  angry  rejoinder  to  this,  and  pres 
ently  prepared  and  published  a  pamphlet  for  his  personal 
vindication,  just  as  Randolph  had  done.  But  Jefferson,  who 
appears  to  have  played  the  preceptor,  took  especial  care  that 
his  wrathful  friend  should  avoid  Randolph's  error  of  making 
his  issue  directly  with  Washington;  and  though  Monroe's 
book,  which  was  slow  of  appearance,  exposed  him  to  the  im 
propriety  of  disclosing  official  papers  too  readily,  it  helped 
rather  than  marred  his  political  fortunes.  He  never  again 
sat  in  Congress,  but  his  next  rise  was  by  a  different  flight, 
Virginia,  under  Jefferson's  favor,  choosing  him  in  1799  for 
governor. 

Close  upon  Monroe's  arrival  from  abroad  came  a  public 
revelation  of  the  Hamilton  scandal,  to  which  we  have  already 
alluded.  Calleuder,  a  Scotch  refugee  of  Republican  sympa 
thies,  who  was  reporter  of  the  Congressional  debates  for  a 
Philadelphia  paper,  published  among  other  political  diatribes, 
in  early  summer,  a  collection  of  papers  which  drew  instant 
attention  to  charges  made  before  Monroe,  Veuable,  and  Muli- 
lenberg,  in  1792,  by  one  Clingmau,  who  had  been  arrested  for 
participating  with  a  person  named  Reynolds  in  procuring  a 
false  adjustment  of  claims  upon  the  government.  These  tended 
to  the  startling  conclusion  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  engaged  in  corrupt  speculations  with  Reynolds  as  his  tool ; 

of  the  only  honest  man  who  has  assented  to"  the  Jay  treaty,  he  adds: 
"  I  wish  that  his  honest}'  and  his  political  errors  may  not  furnish  a 
second  occasion  to  exclaim,  'Curse  on  his  virtues,  they  have  undone  his 
country.' "  Jefferson's  Works,  March  27th,  1796. 


1797.  THE  HAMILTON   SCANDAL.  363 

but  Hamilton  had  convinced  his  investigators  that  this  was 
the  fruit  of  a  malicious  conspiracy  between  these  two  men  to 
make  handle  of  an  amour  he  carried  on  several  months  with 
the  wife  of  Reynolds,  with  her  husband's  connivance,  and  had 
recently  discontinued  after  being  sufficiently  blackmailed. 
The  three  members  of  Congress,  accepting  this  explanation,  as 
Hamilton  understood  them,  dropped  the  subject  considerately, 
and  had  hitherto  foreborne  from  injurious  disclosure. 

The  original  papers,  however,  were  by  his  associates  con 
signed  .to  the  keeping  of  Monroe,  together  with  a  memorandum 
signed  by  Venable,  Muhlenberg,  and  himself,  which  stated 
ambiguously  the  purport  and  result  of  their  inquiry.  A  sub 
sequent  paper,  signed  by  Monroe  alone,  was  added  to  the  col 
lection,  which  showed  that  Clingman  denied  Hamilton's  state 
ment  on  being  confronted  with  the  testimony,  and  asserted 
that  the  Secretary  must  have  invented  a  calumny  and  forged 
writings  to  correspond,  in  order  to  cover  up  official  misbe 
havior.  Through  some  breach  of  honor,  with  which  Monroe 
or  his  Virginia  friends  must  be  charged,*  these  two  latter 
documents  were  now  made  public,  and  the  subject 
reopened,  as  Callender  declared,  in  revenge  for  the 
recent  attacks  made  on  Monroe's  patriotism  and  honesty. j~ 

*  The  preservation  of  the  Clingman  statement  appears  to  indicate  a 
purpose  on  Monroe's  part  to  make  use  of  this  damaging  revelation 
against  Hamilton  at  some  future  time  should  strong  provocation  arise. 
When  he  left  for  France,  according  to  his  own  account,  he  left  all  the 
documents  in  the  hands  of  a  friend,  "  a  respectable  character  in  Vir 
ginia."  Who  this  "  respectable  character"  was  is  not  ascertained.  Mr. 
Hildreth  suspects  Jefferson  ;  5  Ilildreth,  111.  Callender  says  (History 
of  United  States,  102)  that  Jefferson  advised  a  suppression  of  this  publi 
cation,  but  that  his  interposition  came  too  late.  These  papers,  however, 
like  some  others  which  served  for  party  ammunition,  seem  to  have  cir 
culated  confidentially  among  a  conclave  of  Virginia  Republicans,  which 
included  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Giles,  and  possibly  Edmund  Ran 
dolph  or  Beckley.  See  7  John  C.  Hamilton's  Republic.  Beckley  had 
recently  lost  his  re-election  as  clerk  of  the  House.  Though  Monroe 
denied  all  agency  in  their  present  publication,  he  showed  ho  anger  over 
it,  and  the  contest  renders  it  unlikely  that  he  had  deposited  the  papers 
with  any  such  absolute  restrictions  as  prevented  their  present  use  for 
political  retaliation. 

f  Among  other  charges  made  against  Monroe  was  that  of  taking 
French  gold. 


364  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

Hamilton  now  addressed  notes  to  all  three  of  the  investi 
gators,  and  Venable  and  Muhlenberg,  purging  themselves  of 
this  disagreeable  disclosure,  furnished  a  certificate,  cautiously 
worded,  for  Hamilton  to  use  in  his  justification  from  the  charge 
of  corruption.  But  Monroe,  of  whom  Hamilton  more  peremp 
torily  demanded  the  reason  why  the  Cliugman  cer- 

July.August  J  J 

tiiicate,  which  seemed  to  countenance  a  suspicion  of 
such  heinous  crimes  on  his  part  as -forgery,  the  false  imputa 
tion  of  inchastity  and  illicit  speculation,  had  been  added  to  the 
collection  as  though  a  credible  document,  made  evasive  .answer, 
and  after  an  angry  correspondence,  which  scarcely  stopped 
short  of  a  duel,  Hamilton  was  forced  by  Monroe  to  make  his 
own  public  explanation  of  the  unsavory  business.  This  Ham 
ilton  did  by  frankly  confessing  his  adulterous  intercourse,  and 
printing  the  whole  correspondence  which  had  passed  between 
himself  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Reynolds,  with  certificates,  further 
more,  to  establish  the  genuineness  of  their  handwriting.  This 
mortifying  disclosure,  which  Hamilton  could  not  make  with 
out  condemning  himself  "for  the  pang  he  had  inflicted  on  a 
bosom  eminently  entitled  to  all  his  gratitude,  fidelity,  and 
love,"  was  manifestly  wrung  from  a  proud  spirit,  which  spurned 
corruption  in  public  dealings,  and  though  it  must  have  afforded 
to  most  a  strange  insight  into  the  private  failings  of  a  great 
statesman,  whom  party  admirers  ranked  with  Washington 
himself  for  spotlessuess  of  life,  yet  the  lapse  was  felt  by  all 
jealous  hearts  to  be  that  of  our  common  humanity.  The  more 
generous  of  Hamilton's  political  opponents  henceforth  dropped 
the  story,  and  the  public,  like  her  who  had  been  the  most 
wronged,  readily  condoned  the  offence.* 

Blount's  impeachment  for  high  treason  further  intensified 
the  party  bitterness  of  this  year.     President  Adams,  in  the 
course  of  the  first   session,  sent  a   message  to  the 
Senate,  which  complained  that  the  Spanish  officers 
in  Louisiana  were  interfering  with  the  running  of  our  south 
ern    boundary  line    under   the  recent  treaty  with 
Spain.     Among  the  documents   communicated   on 
this  subject  was  discovered  a  letter  dated  April  21st,  1797, 

*  See  Hamilton's  published  confession ;  5  Hildreth. 


1797.  BLOUNT'S  IMPEACHMENT.  365 

addressed  to  one  Carey,  the  Cherokee  interpreter,  in  which 
William  Blount,  a  Senator  from  Tennessee,  urged  him  to  stir 
up  the  Cherokees  and  Creeks,  for  the  purpose,  as  it  would  ap 
pear,  of  abetting  some  scheme  for  invading  the  Spanish  domin 
ions  beyond  our  borders,  which  he  expected  to  carry  out  under 
British  auspices.  .  Upon  the  disclosure  of  this  letter  the  House 
presented  articles  of  impeachment  against  Blount.  As  the 
trial  necessarily  went  over  to  the  long  session,  the  accused 
Senator  was  sequestered,  or  deprived  of  his  seat,  meanwhile 
by  a  nearly  unanimous  vote  of  his  compeers,*  and  com 
pelled,  moreover,  to  furnish  security  to  answer  over  to  the 
charges.  The  investigation,  however,  never  reached  a  point 
on  its  merits,  for  though  much  time  was  consumed  at  the 
succeeding  session  in  trying  to  bring  Blount  to  an  impeach 
ment  trial,  his  Republican  associates  interposed  every  obstacle 
on  his  behalf  On  the  reassembling  of  Congress  at 

Doc   1 79S 

the  third  and  final  session,  the  Senate  resolved  itself 
into  a  high  court  of  impeachment.  But  Blount  had  meantime 
been  elected  to  the  Senate  of  Tennessee,  and  as  its  president 
declined  to  appear  before  the  United  States  Senate  in  person. 
His  counsel,  Dallas  and  Ingersoll,  filed  a  plea  denying  the  juris 
diction  of  the  impeachment  court  on  two  points :  (JL)  That  Sen 
ators  were  not "  officers  "  who,  as  the  Federal  Constitution  read, 
were  alone  liable  to  impeachment ;  (2.)  That  William  Blouut, 
having  been  already  expelled  from  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  was 
not  now  triable,  even  as  a  Senator.  The  Senate  sustained  the 
plea  to  the  jurisdiction,  though  whether  on  one  or 

,J      .  Jan.  1799. 

both  grounds  is  not  clear,  and  so,  like  most  later 

ones,  the  first  of  Federal  impeachment  trials  in  our  history 

was  lost  in  legal  convolutions."!" 

It  was  of  no  little  importance  to  ascertain  for  a  certainty 
whether  any  such  hostile  designs  against  the  Spanish  territory 
as  Blouut's  letter  disclosed  had  really  been  encouraged  by  Great 
Britain  ;  for  upon  that  very  hypothesis  D'Yrujo  had  sought 

*  Senator  Tazewell,  of  Virginia,  voted  alone  in  the  negative  on  this 
question.  His  death  occurred  before  the  fifth  Congress  expired. 

f  William  Blount  died  in  1810,  a  popular  leader  in  his  own  State,  not 
withstanding  this  exit  to  his  Congressional  career.  He  should  be  dis 
tinguished  from  a  brother,  Thomas  Blount,  who  served  in  this  Congress 
as  a  North  Carolina  Representative. 


366  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

to  justify  the  attitude  of  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Louisiana 
in  resisting  the  present  survey  of  the  southern  boundary  line, 
and  hesitating  to  relinquish  the  posts  within  American  juris 
diction.  Angry  with  what  might  appear  like  a  miserable  sub 
terfuge  on  Spain's  behalf  for  clothing  herself,  as  to  posts  and 
boundaries,  in  that  crafty  policy  pursued  so  long  and  so  suc 
cessfully  by  Great  Britain  upon  our  northern  frontiers,  the 
charge  that  a  British  expedition  was  now  fitting  against  the 
Spanish  posts  our  American  administration  regarded  as  wholly 
fabulous  until  the  Blount  letter  came  to  light.  Liston,  the 
British  minister,  who  was  then  asked  to  explain,  ad 
mitted  that  individuals  had  proposed  such  a  plan  to 
him,  whose  general  outline  was  that  the  British  should  in 
vade  Florida  and  the  adjacent  territory  by  sea,  and  further 
rely  upon  the  co-operation  of  American  citizens  ;  but  he  added 
that,  discouraging  the  plot,  he  had  mentioned  it  to  the  home 
government,  which  discountenanced  the  scheme  as  unfriendly 
to  American  neutrality.  He  declined  to  furnish  further  par 
ticulars.  Hereupon  D'Yrujo,  insisting  that  the  British  still 
entertained  such  designs,  took  exception  to  Pickering's  partial 
and  undiplomatic  method  of  putting  the  inquiry  to  Listou,and 
to  the  crude  accusations  he  had  made,  notwithstanding,  against 
Spain  in  his  official  report,  and  published  in  the  newspapers, 
with  an  asperity  which  might  have  been  more  be- 

August.  .          ij.    T\*\r      •    >        11         .•  r> 

coming  had  not  D  Yrujos  allegations  or  an  inva 
sion  scheme  been  brought  so  directly  to  citizens  of  the  United 
States  and  so  very  nearly  to  Great  Britain's  door.  Pickering 
retorted  upon  D'Yrujo,  going  to  the  press,  as  the  latter  had 
done,  and  sending  copies  of  his  letter  to  his  political  friends, 
that  they  might  partake  of  his  own  gratification  in  thus  be 
laboring  the  Spanish  ambassador.  An  alacrity  on  the  part  of 
the  Secretary  of  State  to  provoke  France  over  the  head  of 
Spain,  her  present  ally,  and  irritate  the  latter  needlessly,  was 
here  apparent,  if  not  designs  deeper  still  upon  the  Spanish 
dominions,  to  which  the  President  was  no  party,  and  whose 
development  under  more  favoring  aspects  will  be  perceived  at 
a  later  point  of  this  narration.* 

*  Fisher  Ames,  October  4th,  1797,  congratulated  Pickering  upon  the 
entertainment  his  printed  answer  to  "  the  little  Don  "  had  afforded  ; 


1797.  PETER  PORCUPINE.  367 

The  party  press  of  these  years  had  become  more  malig 
nant  since  Freneau's  Gazette  was  established  from  a  recent 
infusion  of  editorial  talent  from  abroad.  While  Callender, 
whose  disclosure  of  the  Hamilton  scandal  has  been  referred  to, 
prepared  registers  and  pamphlets  in  the  Republican  interest, 
and  somewhat  later  made  newspaper  ventures  of  his  own,  the 
Federalists  had  a  writer  equally  scurillous  and  abler  on  their 
side  in  William  Cobbett,  who  styled  himself  in  his  effusions 
"  Peter  Porcupine."  Cobbett  was  of  English  birth,  at  one 
time  an  attorney's  copying  clerk,  and  afterwards  a  sergeant- 
major  in  the  British  army.  Ingratiating  himself  with  the 
Federal  party  soon  after  his  arrival,  by  pamphlets  satiriz 
ing  Priestley  and  praising  Jay's  treaty,  he  commenced  pub 
lishing  a  newspaper  at  Philadelphia,  on  Adams's  accession, 
called  Porcupine's  Gazette,  ostensibly  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  ultra  Federalists,  but  in  reality  to  propagate  British  opin 
ions  of  a  deeper  dye.  Adverting  in  the  columns  of  his  soon 
notorious  sheet  to  D'Yrujo's  remonstrance  against  the  British 
treaty  as  being  unfair  towards  his  Catholic  master,  Porcupine's 
Gazette  abused  the  ambassador  and  his  sovereign  without 
stint ;  speaking  of  him  as  "  half  Don,  half  sans-culotte,"  and 
reprobating  the  recent  peace  of  the  King  of  Spain  with  the 
murderers  of  his  kinsman,  Louis  XVI,  as  making  that  ruler 
"  the  supple  tool  of  their  most  nefarious  politics."*  Upon 

adding,  "  You  have  not  left  a  whole  bone  in  his  skin."  Pickering's  own 
opinion  of  D'Yrujo,  to  whom  he  constantly  imputed  dishonorable  mo 
tives,  is  shown  in  a  contemporary  letter,  which  expresses  his  contempt 
for  "  the  Spanish  puppy." 

In  support  of  the  idea  entertained  by  our  administration  that  Spain 
was  trying  here  to  evade  her  treaty  obligations  by  mere  pretexts,  Ilil- 
dreth  shows  that,  years  after,  Carondelet,  the  Spanish  governor  of  Louis 
iana,  made  overtures  to  Kentuckians  to  renew  the  old  intrigue  for  a 
separation  from  the  Union.  5  Ilildreth,  87. 

It  would  be  unfair  not  to  accept  Liston's  explanation  of  the  British 
disconnection  with  the  Blount  invasion  scheme,  in  the  absence  of  clearly 
opposing  testimony.  But  one  of  the  letters  in  the  published  correspond 
ence  signed  Kobert  Liston  seems  slightly  inconsistent  with  it.  The 
contrast  between  Pickering's  defiant  correspondence  with  D'Yrnjo  and 
his  deferential  tone  towards  the  British  minister  is  very  marked. 

*  "  As  the  sovereign  is  at  home,"  Cobbett  proceeded  in  the  most  im 
portant  of  these  articles,  "  so  is  the  minister  abroad  ;  the  one  is  governed 


368  HISTOEY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

D'Yrujo's  complaint,  the  government  had  directed  the  Attor 
ney-General  to  lay  this  offensive  matter  before  the 
grand  jury  of  the   Federal  Circuit  Court,  and  Cob- 
bett  was  bound  over  accordingly.     McKean,  the  Chief  Justice 
of  Pennsylvania,   whose  daughter   D'Yrujo   soon  afterwards 
married,  likewise  issued  a  warrant  which  charged 

November.    „  .  .  ..  .     „ 

Cobbett  with  having  published  certain  infamous 
libels  on  the  King  of  Spain  and  his  minister,  and  the  Spanish 
nation,  "  tending  to  alienate  their  affections  and  regard  from 
the  government  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  to  ex 
cite  them  to  hatred,  hostilities,  and  war."  When  the  grand 
jury  assembled  soon  after,  McKean  delivered  an  able  and 
exhaustive  charge  upon  the  law  of  libel,  with  express  reference 
to  Cobbett's  publications.  But  such  was  the  political  diversity 
of  the  times  that  no  indictment  was  found  against  Cobbett, 
either  in  the  State  or  the  Federal  court.*  With  better  success, 
however,  as  it  proved,  McKean  had  already  bound  Cobbett 
over  with  sureties,  in  conformity  with  some  old.  English  prece 
dents,  to  keep  the  peace,  because  of  libels  upon  various  American 
characters  which  had  appeared  in  his  papers,  and  these  still  con 
tinuing,  his  recognizance  was  afterwards  declared  forfeited.t 

The  yellow  fever  raging  violently  this  season  at  Philadel 
phia,  as  well  as  the  season  of  1798,  the  former  panic  of  1793 
was  repeated,  and  had  not  the  disorder  disappeared  once  more 
with  the  first  frosts,  Adams  would  have  felt  obliged  to  con 
vene  Congress  at  some  other  place.  The  public  offices  were 
at  one  time  removed  to  Trenton.  As  the  first  of  the  violent 
opposition  organs  at  Philadelphia,  Freneau's  Gazette,  had  dis 
appeared  in  the  first  calamity  of  1793,  so  the  second  of  them 
seemed  likely  to  follow  on  the  return  of  the  yellow  fever 
in  1798,  for  Bache,  of  the  Aurora,  was  then  one  of 
the  victims.  But  a  fearless  successor  was  found  in 

like  a  dependent  by  the  nod  of  the  five  despots  at  Paris,  the  other  by  the 
directions  of  the  French  agents  in  America.  Because  their  infidel 
tyrants  thought  proper  to  rob  and  insult  this  country  and  its  govern 
ment,  and  we  have  thought  proper,  I  am  sorry  to  add,  to  submit  to 
it,  the  obsequious  'Imitative  Don  must  attempt  the  same,  in  order  to 
participate  in  the  guilt  and  lessen  the  infamy  of  his  masters."  See  5 
Hildreth,  1G1. 

*  See  5  Hildreth,  161-173-  f  Ib. 


1797-98.      DLANE  AND  THE  AURORA.  369 

William  Duane,  another  of  the  emigrant  press  writers,  who, 
though  born  of  Irish  parents  near  Lake  Cham  plain,  had  passed 
his  youth  in  the  fatherland,  whence  proceeding  to  India  to  set 
up  a  newspaper  at  Calcutta,  he  had  his  whole  establishment  con 
fiscated  by  the  British  authorities  because  of  some  free  criti 
cism  upon  government  measures,  and  was  shipped  off  to  Eng 
land  again.  Unable  to  procure  recompense  from  the  home 
government  for  these  acts  of  summary  violence  upon  person 
and  property,  Duaue  came  penniless  to  America,  and  at  Phila 
delphia  obtained  temporary  occupation.  At  first  employed  to 
edit  the  Aurora  after  Bache's  death,  Duaue  presently  married 
Bache's  widow,  and  managing,  as  he  did,  the  chief  organ  of 
the  Republican  party  with  great  vigor,  became  a  potent  poli 
tician  of  the  day. 

Feuuo  died  of  the  yellow  fever  a  few  days  after  Bache,  and 
his  son  continued  the  Gazette,  which  had  long  enjoyed  a  liberal 
share  of  the  government  patronage  at  Philadelphia.  But  the 
New  York  Minerva,  edited  by  Noah  Webster,  afterwards 
famous  as  the  lexicographer,  was  now  the  favorite  sheet  with 
the  more  respectable  and  conservative  party  Federalists ;  for 
Feuno's  Gazette  inclined  to  play  the  sycophant  more  to  the 
cabinet  than  to  the  administration. 

The  bitterness  of  party  politics  by  no  means  diminished 
after  Congress  came  together  for  its  second  session  ;  the  day 
fixed  having  been  November  13th,  but,  from  fear  of  the  yel 
low  fever,  a  quorum  not  assembling  before  the  22d.  Our  re 
cent  diplomatist  and  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency, 
Thomas  Piuckney,  appeared  from  the  Charleston  district  to 
fill  William  Smith's  place  in  the  House,  while  Andrew  Jackson 
took  one  of  the  vacant  chairs  of  Tennessee  in  the  Senate, 
and  Joseph  Anderson  succeeded  Blount. 

The  President's  message  urged  upon  Congress  timely  exer 
tions  for  protecting  American  commerce  and  plac- 

Nov.  23. 

ing  the  United  States  in  a  suitable  position  of  de 
fence,  and  the  Spanish  boundary  difficulty  was  also  alluded  to. 
But  there  appeared   in   Congress  very  little   heartiness  in 
acting  upon  the  President's  recommendation  for  defensive  ac 
tion   so  long  as  our  new  embassy  to  France  was  not  heard 


370  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

from.  Never  did  the  winter  months  of  a  long  session  drift 
along  more  listlessly.  Close,  too,  upon  the  wings  of  a  pesti 
lence  at  Philadelphia  followed  mercantile  disaster.  Spolia 
tions  by  England  and  France,  overtrading,  foolish  specula 
tions,  all  had  borne  legitimate  fruit,  and  the  commercial  dis 
tress  of  Great  Britain  reacted  unfavorably  upon  capitalists 
hitherto  considered  beyond  the  reach  of  ruin.  Robert  Morris, 
with  Greeuleaf  and  other  partners,  who  had  most  recklessly 
embarked  in  land  ventures,  went  down,  and  their  fall  hastened 
the  catastrophe  in  other  quarters.  Morris,  who  ever  since  the 
war  had  been  purchasing  wild  lands  in  every  direction,  which 
he  owned  by  the  hundred  acres  in  six  different  States  of  the 
Union  and  the  District  of  Columbia,  had  borrowed  for  several 
years  money  to  pay  the  taxes  upon  his  unproductive  property.* 
Credit  sunk;  business  stagnated;  failures  were  frequent; 
prices  fell  greatly ;  the  Philadelphia  market  was  cheaper  than 
it  had  been  for  four  years  ;  labor  and  house  rents  underwent 
great  reduction.  The  President,  early  in  January,  with  the 
sad  experience  of  Morris  in  mind,  called  the  attention  of 
Congress  to  defects  in  the  existing  act  for  the  relief  of  persons 
who  were  imprisoned  for  debt;  and  to  further  alleviate  the  dis 
tress  of  the  mercantile  community  the  subject  of  a  bankrupt 
bill  was  considered  by  Congress,  but  without  definite  action. 

A  disgraceful  affair,  the  first  of  personal  encounters  on  the 
floor  of  an  American  Congress,  brought  home  to  the  minds 
of  peaceable  citizens  the  growing  indecorum  of  politics.  While 
the  House  balloted  for  managers  of  the  Blount  im 
peachment  before  the  Senate,  the  Speaker  left  his 
chair,  members  collected  in  groups,  and  a  general  conversa 
tion  went  on.  Lyou,  who  had  in  vain  renewed  at  this  session 
his  former  request  to  be  excused  from  waiting  upon  the  Presi 
dent  with  the  House  response,  and  whose  oddity  of  appear 
ance,  loquacity,  and  vulgar  manners,  made  him  the  butt  of 
political  adversaries  who  could  not  appreciate  the  more  cour 
ageous  side  of  the  man,  now  entered  into  a  conversation  with 
the  Speaker  in  a  loud  tone  of  voice,  in  criticism  of  the  foreign 


*  See  Albany  MSS.,  Kobert  Morris's  letters.   Morris  was  released  from 
prison  in  1802,  and  died  in  1806. 


1798.  AFFAIR   OF   LYON  AND   GRISWOLD.  371 

intercourse  bill  and  the  high  salaries  paid  to  our  ambassadors. 
Other  members  gathered  about  to  enjoy  the  fun  of  listening, 
as  Lyon  proceeded  to  speak  of  the  Connecticut  people; 
boasting  that  if  he  could  only  go  into  that  State  and  manage 
&  newspaper,  he  would  so  open  their  eyes  that  they  would 
turn  out  all  their  present  representatives  for  Republicans. 
Among  the  jeering  bystanders  now  appeared  Griswold  of  that 
State  ;  who,  laying  his  hand  on  Lyon's  arm,  somewhat  jocosely 
remarked  :  "  You  could  not  change  the  opinion  of  the  meanest 
hostler  in  the  State."  Lyon  replied  that  he  knew  better; 
and  that  he  seriously  thought  of  moving  into  the  State  and 
fighting  the  Federalists  there  on  their  own  ground.  "If  you 
go,"  rejoined  Griswold,  "  I  suppose  you  will  wear  your  wooden 
sword ;"  alluding,  as  in  a  previous  taunt  which  Lyoh  did  not 
notice,  to  a  ludicrous  story  then  current,  that  Lyon,  while 
serving  in  the  war,  had  been  cashiered  and  compelled  to  wear 
a  wooden  sword.  Lyon  instantly  turned  and  spat  in  Gris- 
wold's  face.  Griswold  drew  back  as  if  to  strike,  but  his  friends 
restrained  him,  and  the  Speaker,  taking  the  chair,  quickly 
rapped  the  House  to  order.  A  resolution  was  at  once  offered 
by  one  of  the  New  England  Federalists  for  Lyon's  expulsion 
from  the  House  for  a  breach  of  decorum  ;  and  upon  this  reso 
lution  a  committee  on  privileges  reported  favorably 
a  few  days  after.  But,  while  Lyon's  party  friends 
were  not  a  little  ashamed  of  this  unique  specimen  of  a  states 
man,  the  more  so  that  in  making  his  own  defence  Lyon  pres 
ently  disturbed  the  decorum  of  the  House  once  more,  by 
using  an  indecent  metaphor,  they  resisted  so  harsh  and  sum 
mary  a  means  of  ridding  the  House  of  a  fellow-member  whose 
insult  had  not  been  after  all  without  wanton  provocation  ;  and 
failing  to  get  a  reprimand  substituted,  they  voted  against  the 
resolution  for  Lyon's  expulsion,  which,  receiving 

J.      .  l  '  .    .  6  February  12. 

accordingly  a  majority,  but  not  the  requisite  two- 
thirds,  was  lost. 

The  opposition  to  Lyou's  expulsion  had  been  placed  mainly 
upon  the  technical  ground  that  the  House  was  not  at  the  time 
of  the  alleged  indecorum  in  actual  session.  Griswold  now 

took  his  offended  honor  into   his  personal  keeping; 

T  i      TT  1  •   i    February  15. 

and  when  Lyon  next  appeared  in  the  House,  which 


372  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

was  not  for  several  days,  the  usual  prayers  having  been  read, 
Griswold  walked  up  to  him  aud  began  beating  him  over  the 
head  with  a  cane.  Lyon  rushed  to  the  fireplace  and  seized 
a  pair  of  tongs  which  he  brandished  at  his  assailant.  They 
closed  and  fell  together,  Griswold  uppermost.  Griswold's 
friends  dragged  him  off  by  the  legs;  and  in  his  turn  Lyon, 
having  procured  a  cane,  advanced  to  renew  the  onset ;  when 
the  Speaker,  who  had  calmly  permitted  the  fight  to  pro 
ceed  to  this  point,  called  the  House  to  order.  Those  who 
had  voted  against  Lyou's  expulsion  called  for  the  expulsion 
of  both  the  parties  to  this  shameful  strife ;  but  Griswold's 
friends  now  turned  to  his  advantage  the  argument  these  had 
used  before,  that  the  House  was  not  in  session,  and  hence 
•  neither  an  expulsion  nor  a  censure  could  be  carried. 

February  23.    -r,          t       ,      T  I/-N-TI 

J3ut  both  JLyon  and  Griswold  were  required  to 
pledge  themselves  to  have  no  further  personal  contest  during 
the  session.  Disgraceful  as  was  this  public  spectacle,  each  of 
these  representatives  was  returned  to  the  succeeding  Congress 
by  his  constituency  ;  having  gained  an  opportunity  to  deepen  a 
certain  sort  of  popular  sympathy  by  becoming  much  talked 
about.* 

The  Federalist  leaders,  we  may  here  observe,  had  been  ex 
tending  and  consolidating  their  party  strength,  ever  since 
Washington's  retirement;  in  the  absence  of  distinctive  issues, 
holding  up  his  mantle  to  the  public  as  a  precious  relic,  while 
they  felt  inwardly  relieved  of  that  guiding  influence  which 
had  hitherto  constrained  political  action  to  such  course  as  the 
general  welfare  seemed  to  his  own  calm  judgment  to  require. 
Clinton's  retirement  from  office,  and  Jay's  prudent  conduct  as 

*  This  second  fracas  between  Griswold  and  Lyon  was  made  the  sub 
ject  of  an  American  caricature,  which  Mr.  James  Parton  lias  preserved 
in  a  recent  work.  The  "wooden  sword"  story  seems  to  have  been 
substantially  true ;  but,  as  Lyon  claimed,  the  blame  for  deserting  the 
post  for  which  he  had  been  thus  cashiered  and  humiliated,  rested  in 
reality  upon  his  superior  officers;  and  in  justice  to  him  it  should  be 
added,  that  the  public  trusts  Lyon  had  since  iilled,  besides  his  truly 
energetic  business  career,  showed  him  to  be  not  only  one  who  had  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens  in  Vermont,  but  a  man  of  genuine  vigor, 
intelligence,  and  resolution,  by  no  means  so  contemptible  as  he  was 
commonly  regarded  in  Congress  on  his  unfortunate  entrance. 


1797-98.  FEDERALISM   IX   THE   STATES.  373 

Governor  of  New  York,  aided  that  political  change  in  the  New 
York  legislature,  which  early  in  1797  brought  a  Federal  Senator 
once  more  into  Congress.  In  Massachusetts,  too,  the  spring  elec 
tion  of  the  same  year  had,  for  the  first  time,  made  a  strictly  party 
Federalist  the  governor  of  the  State,  Increase  Sumuer  suc 
ceeding  the  veteran  Samuel  Adams,  who,  by  reason  of  declining 
years  and  popularity,  now  relinquished  office.  Vermont  chose 
a  Federal  governor  in  the  fall.  In  New  England,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Delaware,  Federalism  was  now  strongly  estab 
lished,  in  name  at  least ;  and  while  the  great  mass  of  the  voters 
in  this  great  northerly  section  developed  a  repugnance  to 
French  fellowship,  and  trusted  the  successor  of  Washington 
to  administer  the  government  by  his  ideas,  so  the  old  party 
leaders  had  determined  to  go  farther  still,  by  rooting  Jaco 
binism  completely  out  of  American  soil,  and  holding  our  sans 
culottes  where  they  could  not  repeat  the  turbulent  scenes 
witnessed  of  late  years  at  Paris. 

Miffliu's  term  in  Pennsylvania  had  not  yet  expired.  Mary 
land  chose  a  Republican  governor;  but  in  a  close  legislature, 
here  as  in  Vermont,  a  Federalist  obtained  by  a  majority  of  a 
'•"Tie  vote  the  United  States  Senatorship.  South  of  the  Ohio 
and  Potomac,  however,  Republicanism  remained  still  en 
trenched.  With  this  geographical  division  of  the  country,  the 
National  Republican  party,  having  already  abandoned  French 
sentimentalism,  as  it  had  become  highly  needful,  took  rather 
the  ground  in  foreign  relations  already  commended  by  Jeffer 
son,  that  America  ought  to  stand  neutral  of  Europe,  and 
keep  out  of  the  balance  of  power;*  as  for  the  rest,  preaching 
constant  economy  and  simplicity, and  opposing  alike  all  schemes 
for  British  ascendency  and  American  centralism. 

From  the  exhibition  of  angry  wrangling  in  American  poli 
tics,  let  us  turn  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  American  envoys, 
Pinckney,  Marshall,  and  Gerry,  from  whom  nothing 
had  been  heard  all  this  time  by  their  fellow-country 
men,  beyond  the  fact  that  they  had  safely  reached  Paris  to 
gether  early  in  October,  to  pursue  the  grave  object  of  their 
special  mission  from  the  United  States. 

*  See,  c.  g.j  Gullatin's  speeches  in  this  winter's  debate  on  foreign  inter 
course. 


374  HISTORY   OF   THE   UXITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  time  was  unpropitious  for  honorable  or  even  honest 
negotiations.  While  all  France  suffered  financial  distress, 
foreign  victories  had  made  the  government  arrogant.  Napo 
leon,  the  master  of  Venice,  with  whom  Austria  was  just  con 
cluding  the  peace  of  Campo  Formio,  which  placed  Upper  Italy 
at  his  disposal,  and  secured  the  surrender  of  Belgium  and 
Mayence  to  the  French  arms,  had,  in  September,  by  a  military 
stratagem,  purged  the  French  legislative  assembly  of  Pichegru 
and  the  royalist  faction,  in  order  to  strengthen  the  Barras 
Directory  in  his  personal  interest.  As  now  reorganized  the 
executive  government  was  both  corrupt  and  compliant  to  his 
will.  Of  the  five  directors  the  majority  had  no  strength  with 
the  French  people ;  while  Talleyrand,  restored  to  power  as 
minister  for  foreign  affairs,  though  but  lately  a  proscribed 
exile,  was  a  wily  fox,  whose  diplomacy  meant  duplicity,  and 
who  had  so  lately  been  treated  to  a  stork  banquet  in  America 
that  the  opportunity  to  furnish  one  of  his  own  kind  in  return 
must  have  appeared  to  his  mind  almost  irresistible.* 

The  letters  of  credence  and  instructions  furnished  to  the 
envoys  of  the  United  States  declared  them  appointed  for  ter 
minating  all  differences  with  France,  and  restoring  harmony 
and  a  good  understanding,  and  commercial  and  friendly  inter 
course  between  the  two  republics.  The  authority  for  this 
purpose  was  conferred  upon  the  three  jointly  and  severally,  and 
they  were  directed  to  proceed  to  do  and  obtain  justice,  at  the 
same  time  insisting  that  no  blame  for  past  transactions  rested 
upon  the  United  States.  And  redress  for  the  late  and  earlier 
spoliations  of  France  upon  American  commerce  was  to  be 
pressed,  though  not  insisted  upon  as  indispensable  to  a  treaty, 
but  under  no  circumstances  should  such  claims  be  either  re 
nounced  or  assumed  by  our  government  as  a  loan  to  France. 
While  the  American  envoys  were  not  to  commit  their  govern 
ment  to  any  stipulations  incompatible  with  its  complete  sover- 

*  Talleyrand's  visit  to  America,  while  in  exile,  which  has  been  al 
luded  to  in  the  preceding  chapter,  produced  some  singular  impressions. 
He  regarded  Hamilton  as  one  of  the  three  greatest  men  of  the  age,  but 
hated  Washington,  and  looked  with  contempt  upon  the  American  peo 
ple.  "  A  democracy ! "  he  would  say,  "  what  is  it  but  an  aristocracy  of 
blackguards ! " 


1797.  OUR   EMBASSY   AT   PARIS.  375 

eignty  and  independence,  they  were  permitted  to  yield  to 
France  terms,  if  need  be,  in  respect  of  the  seizure  of  enemies* 
goods  in  neutral  vessels,  provisions,  and  contraband,  similar  to 
those  contained  in  the  British  treaty.  A  mutual  renunciation 
of  the  guarantee  clause  contained  in  the  treaty  of  1778  ap 
peared  highly  desirable  ;  but  this  was  a  topic  to  be  delicately 
touched  upon,  if  at  all,  for  so  far  as  concerned  the  present 
European  struggle,  France  had  never  yet  insisted  upon  our 
observance  of  that  troublesome  provision,  nor  seriously  contro 
verted  the  American  argument,  so  favorite  a  one  by  this  time, 
that  the  guarantee  related  only  to  defensive  wars,  and  not  to 
a  contest  with  Great  Britain  like  the  present. 

Bearing  to  Paris  terms  so  liberal  and  honorable  from  the 
new  President,  Pinckney,  Marshall,  and  Gerry  sent 
notice  of  their  arrival  to  the  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  requested  the  appointment  of  a  suitable  occasion 
for  presenting  their  letters  of  credence  to  the  French  Republic. 
Talleyrand  sent  them  cards  of  hospitality,  but  feigned  various 
excuses  for  putting  off  the  time  of  their  official  reception. 
Presently  an  influential  mercantile  gentleman  of 
Paris,  well  known  to  the  envoys,  introduced  to  them/ 
a  Mr.  Hottinguer  as  a  person  in  whom  the  utmost  faith  could 
be  placed,  and  who  had  important  communications  to  make. 
Hottinguer,  thus  brought  to  their  notice,  represented  himself 
as  authorized  by  a  gentleman  in  Talleyrand's  especial  confi 
dence  to  confer  with  them,  and  then  proceeded  to  state,  that  the 
French  Directory  considered  themselves  affronted  by  some  of 
the  expressions  contained  in  President  Adams's  message  to 
Congress  at  the  extra  session.  It  was  needful  that  these  expres 
sions  be  softened,  as  for  instance,  by  a  written  disavowal  on 
their  part,  before  the  envoys  could  be  officially  received ;  also 
that  a  loan  be  made  the  French  Republic,  together  with  private 
douceurs  for  the  directors,  the  latter  to  the  amount  of  1,200,000 
livres,  or  about  $240,000,  which  should  be  placed  at  Talley 
rand's  disposal.  At  the  request  of  the  envoys  these  audacious 
propositions  were  put  in  writing,  and  Hottinguer 

Oct  20  21 

presently  returned,  bringing   with  him   to  confirm 

his  authority,  the  gentleman  in  Talleyrand's   confidence    to 

whom  he  had  referred,  namely,  a  Mr.  Bellamy,  of  Hamburg. 


376  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Bellamy,  who  professed  to  be  in  direct  communication  with 
Talleyrand,  while  careful  not  to  state  directly  that  the  pro 
posals  emanated  from  either  the  minister  or  the  directors,  en 
forced  in  substance  all  that  Hottinguer  had  stated,  and  imme 
diately  proceeded  to  unfold  more  at  length  the  means  by 
which  a  good  understanding  with  the  French  government 
might  be  reached,  and  a  treaty  procured  placing  neutral  rights 
on  the  same  footing  as  under  the  British  treaty.  A  disavowal, 
a  loan,  and  douceurs,  he  said,  were  needful.  And  as  if  to 
show  how  money  might  be  secretly  transferred  between  the 
go'vernments,  so  as  to  avoid  a  British  complaint  of  uuneutral 
conduct,  Bellamy  suggested  that  the  United  States  should 
take,  by  assignment  from  France,  certificates  of  an  extorted 
Dutcn  loan,  whose  present  face  value  was  $12,800,000,  but 
which  were  worth  only  about  half  that  sum  in  the  market ; 
in  other  words,  making  a  present  loan  of  over  $6,000,000,  with 
the  prospect  that  the  securities  thus  taken  would  rise  to  par 
after  the  present  European  war  was  over.  But  loan  and 
douceurs  were  in  any  event  to  be  separated. 

Our  envoys,  astonished  that  demands  should  be  made  upon 
them,  as  though  the  United  States,  rather  than  France,  had 
been  the  aggressor,  after  all  these  outrageous  depredations 
committed  upon  American  commerce,  responded  that  their 
powers  respecting  a  treaty  were  ample,  but  they  were  not  em 
powered  to  make  any  loan  ;  one  of  their  number,  however, 
could  return  home  and  consult  the  government  on  that  point, 
provided  the  Directory  would  meantime  suspend  further 
American  captures  and  the  prize  proceedings,  including  awards 
unfavorable  to  American  interests.  A  recantation  of  the 
President's  speech  was,  however,  impossible,  and  from  the  na 
ture  of  things,  beyond  the  range  of  diplomatic  revision. 

The  next  day  M.  Hauteval,  a  respectable  French  gentle 
man,  formerly  resident  in  Boston,  called  to  assure 

Oct.  22  23.  • 

the  envoys  of  Talleyrand's  good  disposition  towards 
the  United  States,  and  to  pave  the  way  for  a  private  and  un 
official  interview.     It  was  agreed  that  Gerry,  who  had  known 
both  Hauteval  and  Talleyrand  in  America,  should 
go;  and  on  the  28th,  according  to  pre-arrangernent, 
Talleyrand  received  him  in  company  with  Hauteval,  the  latter 


1797.  OUR   EMBASSY   AT   PARIS.  377 

acting  as  interpreter.  The  day  previous  to  this  meeting,  Hot- 
tinguer  had  once  more  pressed  his  arguments  for  a  loan  and 
douceurs  as  before. 

The  tenor  of  Gerry's  interview  with  Talleyrand  served  to 
confirm  the  impression  that  all  Hottinguer  and  Bellamy  had 
littered  was  under  his  inspiration;  for,  though  discreetly 
silent  as  to  douceurs,  Talleyrand  now  put  the  request  for  a 
loan  to  France  in  terms  similar,  only  more  peremptory;  and 
he  exhibited  a  decree  passed  by  the  Directory,  which  required 
reparation  made  for  the  language  used  in  the  President's 
speech  ;  observing,  however,  that  he  thought  its  operation 
might  be  prevented  by  an  offer  of  money.  Gerry  responded 
with  the  same  observations  he  and  his  colleagues  had  already 
made  to  Hottinguer  and  Bellamy,  and  to  Hauteval  afterwards. 
Pinckneyaud  Marshall  having  been  informed  of  the  conversa 
tion,  accredited  Gerry's  words. 

Once  more  Hottinguer  and  Bellamy  approached  the  envoys 
to  try  either  bv  persuasion  or  threats  to  shake  their 

i  *  11      T  XT          T          ,  T  Oct.  29-31. 

reluctance.  Alluding  to  JNapoleons  pending  ar 
rangements  with  Austria,  they  represented  that  Great  Brit 
ain's  downfall  was  now  inevitable,  in  which  case  her  wealth 
and  arts  would  naturally  pass  to  America  ;  but  should  France 
and  the  United  States  fall  out  with  one  another,  the  latter 
power  might  be  doomed  to  suffer  the  fate  of  Venice.  Talley 
rand  had  already  advised  Gerry  that  the  three  assume  powers 
and  make  the  loan;  and  now  the  course  the  envoys  should 
take  was  sketched  out  by  these  unofficial  negotiators  more 
fully.  They  must  propose  to  Talleyrand,  confiding  in  his  in 
fluence  with  the  Directory  to  procure  the  consent  of  the  latter 
to,  (1)  the  establishment  of  a  commission  to  decide  on  Amer 
ican  claims,  the  sums  awarded  to  be  advanced  to  France,  (2) 
the  return  of  one  of  the  envoys  to  America  to  procure  all 
needful  authority  respecting  a  loan,  with  possibly  (3)  a  cessa 
tion  of  captures  and  prize  proceedings  against  American  prop 
erty  during  the  six  months  which  might  presumably  elapse 
for  procuring  such  authority.  But  all  or  most  of  the  douceur 
money  must  be  paid  at  once,  and  without  waiting  for  any  fur 
ther  instructions  from  America. 

Spurning  indignantly  these  base  proposals,  and  determined 
VOL.  i.— 32 


378  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV 

at  length  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  secret  and  unaccredited 
agents  and  back-stair  diplomacy,  the  envoys  now 
made  up  their  minds  to  address  Talleyrand  formally 
on  the  subject  of  their  official  recognition,  and  bring  their 
embassy  to  a  point-'  As  if  to  terrify  them,  Hottinguer  had 
shown  what  purported  to  be  the  draft  of  a  letter  upon  the 
President's  speech  which  Talleyrand  intended  sending  them, 
together  with  a  memorial  to  America,  complaining  of  the  en 
voys  as  unfriendly;  but.  this  of  course  produced  no  effect. 
Having  at  length  transmitted  to  America  in  cipher  a  full  ac 
count  of  their  unpleasant  experiences,  our  envoys  drew  up  and 
forwarded  to  Talleyrand  a  communication, courteously  worded, 
which  recalled  his  promise  upon  their  arrival  to  consider  the 
subject  of  receiving  their  credentials. 

To  this  communication  no  response  was  made,  though  Tal- 
levraud  gave  verbal  intimation   that  it   had  been 

Nov.  21.  " 

received  and  laid  before  the  Directory.     Meantime 
the  unofficial  characters  renewed  their  attempts  upon  the  in 
tegrity  of  the  envoys  with  all  the  energy  possible,  and  regard 
less  of  the  rebuffs  they  encountered.     The  condem- 

Deccmber.  .  .  . 

nation  of  American  vessels  still  continued,  and  the 
startling  report  was  circulated  that  all  Americans  were  to  be 
ordered  out  of  Paris. 

Gerry's  personal  relations  with  Talleyrand,  however,  being 
civil,  he  undertook  to  arrange  a  dinner-party  at  which  his 
colleagues  should  be  present,  hoping  that  by  bringing  all  four 
of  them  together  socially  a  better  official  understanding  might 
be  attained.  Bellamy,  who  called  to  accompany  Gerry  to 
Talleyrand's  office  for  giving  the  invitation,  renewed  in  Mar 
shall's  presence  his  corrupt  proposals  of  a  loan  and  gratuity, 
but  so  as  to  reduce  the  former  requirement  to  a  purchase  of 
Dutch  rescriptions  amounting  to  half  the  sum  previously  stated. 
He  gave  assurance  that  a  good  understanding  between  France 
and  the  United  States  might  by  this  means  be  immediately 
restored.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  suggest  new  blinds  for 
covering  up  such  a  transaction.  "  Unless  these  propositions 
are  accepted,"  he  added,  "steps  will  be  taken  immediately  to 
ravage  the  coast  of  the  United  States  by  French  frigates  from 


1798.  OUR   EMBASSY   AT   PARIS.  379 

St.  Domingo."*  Gerry  plainly  informed  Talleyrand  when  the 
latter  made  his  appearance  that  Bellamy  had  stated  certain 
propositions  as  emanating  from  him  ;  to  which  Talleyrand  un 
hesitatingly  responded  that  information  given  by  Bellamy  was 
correct,  and  might  always  be  relied  upon,  and  himself  pro 
ceeded  to  make  a  written  memorandum  of  the  proposal  con 
cerning  the  Dutch  rescriptions,  which  he  showed  Gerry,  and 
afterwards  burned  ;  prudently  refraining,  as  on  all  other  occa 
sions,  from  direct  reference  to  the  gratuity  or  bribe-money. 

The  envoys  once  more  resolved  to  hold  no  more  inter 
course  with  unofficial  persons,  but  to  hasten  matters  to  a  defi 
nite  conclusion  with  the  Directory.  Their  dis- 

Dec.  24. 

patches  prepared  for  America,  which  brought  the 
narrative  down  to  this  date,  expressed  the  opinion  that  were 
they   to   remain   six    mouths    longer   they  could   accomplish 
nothing  without  promising  to  pay  considerable  money,  unless 
some  unexpected  change  should  occur  in  the  French  adminis 
tration,  or   the    French    invasion    of  England  by 
Napoleon,  at  this  time  projected,  should  miscarry. 
Gerry's  dinner  to  Talleyrand,  under  all  these  circumstances, 
proved  of  no  diplomatic  consequence,  and  the  guests  appeared 
under  cold  constraint. 

An  elaborate  memorial  was  soon  prepared  by  the  envoys  in 
pursuance  of  their  resolution,  which  all  signed. 

rri  •  ,     i     •  ,  .',  &  Jan.  17,  1798. 

Inis  recounted  in  temperate  language,  the  wrongs 
the  United  States  had  suffered  from  France,  and  defended 
their  government  at  length  against  the  complaints  which  the 
French  Republic  had  made  from  time  to  time;  concluding, 
somewhat  regretfully,  with  the  request  that  if  no  hope  remained 
of  accommodating  existing  differences  by  any  means  which  the 
United  States  had  authorized,  the  return  of  the  envoys  to 
their  own  country  might  be  facilitated.  This  document, 
drafted  by  Marshall,  elicited  nothing  for  weeks  beyond  an 
intimation  through  Talleyrand's  private  secretary,  'by  no 
means  complimentary,  that  it  was  so  long  nobody  had  yet 
found  opportunity  to  read  it.  Before  it  was  actually 
sent,  in  fact,  a  new  and  sweeping  decree  had  been 

*  To  tliis  Gerry  replied  with  spirit :  "  You  may  ravage  their  coast,  but 
you  never  can  subdue  the  American  people." 


380  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

promulgated  by  the  Directory,  which  declared  all  vessels  good 
prize  having  merchandise  on  board  the  production  of  England 
or  her  colonies,  whoever  might  be  the  owner  of  the  merchan 
dise,  and  forbade,  except  in  distress,  the  entrance  into  French 
ports  of  any  vessel  which  during  her  voyage  had  already 
touched  at  an  English  port.  Anticipating  this  decree,  which 
had  been  in  fact  for  some  time  under  consideration  in  the 
French  legislative  assembly,  our  envoys  had  transmitted  a 
draft  of  it  with  their  December  dispatches. 

There  were  now  indications  that  Talleyrand  had  begun  to 
detach   Gerry  from    his   less   facile  colleagues,   by 

February.  •  t      n  •  •  to  ,  .       . 

adroitly  nattering  and  turning  to  account  his  sin 
cerely  patriotic  wish  to  avert  the  declaration  of  war  against 
the  United  States  which  he  feared  was  impending.  As  this 
course  was  unfair  to  Pinckney  and  Marshall,  and  contrary  to 
what  the  gravity  of  the  situation  required,  they  resolved  to 
bring  about  a  crisis,  and  accordingly  asked  a  joint  interview 
with  the  French  minister.  The  interview  was  promptly  ac 
corded.  The  artful  Talleyrand,  still  continuing- 

March  2,  G.  .  i          i    /•        •  i  •  T     i 

to  keep  our  envoys  on  the  deteusive,  chided  them 
gently  for  not  paying  him  private  visits,  and  then,  with  an  assu 
rance  that  the  Directory  had  sincerely  wished  on  their  arrival 
to  see  a  solid  friendship  established  between  France  and  the 
United  States,  once. more  broached,  in  the  course  of  two  sepa 
rate  interviews,  the  immediate  loan  proposition,  arguing  with 
them  as  though  their  scruples  related  mainly  to  exposing  them 
selves  and  their  government  to  a  charge  of  neutral  infidelity, 
and  had  only  to  be  overcome  by  the  astute  contrivance  of  some 
lying  subterfuge.  Standing  upon  their  honor  and  the  tenor 
of  their  present  instructions,  Pinckney  and  Marshall  sturdily 
and  absolutely  refused  to  make  a  loan. 

At  length  Talleyrand's  counter- memorial  appeared.   After  a 

long  and  rambling  defence  of  the  French  ground 

jyTn.rcy  18.          1*1  • 

taken  in  the  present  controversy  over  mutual  griev 
ances,  in  the  course  of  which  the  United  States  were  roundly 
lectured  for  having  shown  partiality  to  Great  Britain,  it  was 
stated  that  the  Directory  felt -disposed  to  treat  only  with 
Gerry,  "  that  one  of  the  three,  whose  opinions  presumed  to  be 


1798.  OUR   EMBASSY   AT   PARIS.  381 

more  impartial,  promised  in  the  course  of  the  explanations 
more  of  that  reciprocal  confidence  which  was  indispensable." 

This  arrogant  and  insulting  proposition  (to  sustain  which 
the  joint  and  several  powers  conferred  under  the  credentials 
of  the  American  envoys  were  cited)  Talleyrand  put  forth  in 
sinuatingly,  as  though  it  were  no  ultimatum,  but  a  mere  wish 
or  suggestion  on  the  part  of  his  government,  that  Piuckney 
and  Marshall  would  bow  themselves  out. 

Talleyrand  and  the  Directory  did  not,  as  we  may  conceive, 
intend  or  expect  thus  to  come  to  a  rupture  with  the  United 
States  and  undertake  a  new  war.  But  they  wanted  money 
for  the  straits  of  France  in  her  costly  campaigns,  and  for  their 
private  endowment ;  they  were  elated  by  the  successes  of  the 
French  arms  in  Italy ;  besides  which  they  had  evidently  con 
ceived  a  low  idea  of  American  politics  and  political  leaders, 
and  reckoned  with  over-confidence  upon  keeping  the  attach 
ment  of  sympathizers  in  this  country  with  the  French  revolu 
tion,  as  that  of  a  servile  faction,  regardless  of  the  unfavorable 
turn  that  revolution  had  taken  and  of  their  own  nation's 
honor.  With  such  a  faction  in  America  to  keep  the  Federal 
administration  at  bay,  as  a  faithful  confederate,  their  more 
probable  intention  was  to  extort  all  the  material  aid  possible 
as  a  price  for  re-establishing  the  friendly  commercial  relations 
our  merchants  evidently  desired. 

Equally  sedulous,  however,  while  maintaining  their  official 
dignity  to  avoid  a  threatening  or  offensive  tone,  Pinckney  and 
Marshall  remonstrated  in  another  lengthy  paper  against  the 
selection  of  Gerry  to  the  exclusion  of  themselves; 
and,  defending  still  their  government  against  Tal 
leyrand's  imputations  of  partiality,  they  expressed  the  hope 
that  the  prejudices  conceived  against  them  might  now  be  dis 
sipated  ;  otherwise,  that  such  passports  as  the  Directory  might 
order  would  be  accompanied  by  ample  letters  of  safe  conduct. 
Talleyrand,  still  urbanely  assuming  that  the  retirement  of 
Piuckney  and  Marshall  was  their  voluntary  act,  proposed  im 
mediately  to  the  third  envoy  to  resume  the  negotiations  singly  ; 
to  which  Gerry  inconsiderately  consented,  but  only,  as  he  said, 
upon  the  understanding  that  he  should  not  be  made  an  in 
strument  for  placing  any  slight  upon  Pinckney  and  Marshall, 


382  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

and,  of  course,  as  an  American  no  longer  accredited  an  envoy> 
one  who  could  only  confer  informally  with  Talleyrand  and 
communicate  results  to  his  government  accordingly. 

The  embassy  now  broke  up.     Marshall  having,  after  some 
delav  and  trouble,  procured  both  passport  and  safe 

April  16.  -  iii  *  •  4-»-       i 

conduct  hastened  back  to  America;  rmckney  re 
tired  to  the  South  of  France,  having  permission  to  remain 
there  a  few  months  on  account  of  a  daughter's  ill-health; 
while  Gerry,  as  uneasy  as  his  late  colleagues  were  dejected, 
continued  alone  in  Paris.* 

President  Adams  had  conjectured  before  Congress  assem 
bled,  and  upon  receiving  news  of  the  changes  effected  in  the 
French  administration,  that  the  issue  of  the  special  embassy 
might  be  ill.  He  felt  that  it  was  impossible  to  expect  perma 
nent  tranquillity  so  long  as  American  commerce  remained  ex 
posed  to  plunder  without  the  means  of  adequate  defence  or 
protection.  He  had  thus  far  in  vain  sought  to  bring  Congress 
to  his  own  view  that  a  strong  American  navy  ought  to  be 
created  and  maintained.  He  early  consulted  his 

Jan.  24.  J 

Cabinet  as  to  the  course  proper  in  case  our  envoys 

should  fail ;  and  when  the  earlier  dispatches  from  Piuckuey, 

Marshall,  and   Gerry  arrived,  which   brought  the 

March  4.  ,,,... 

story  or  their  mission  to  the  new  year  and  warned 
him  of  the  impending  decree  against  neutral  vessels,  and  which 
showed,  furthermore,  that  our  envoys  despaired  of  being  offi 
cially  recognized  or  accomplishing  the  objects  of  their  mis 
sion  on  terms  of  honor,  Adams  brought  the  whole  subject  to 
the  graver  consideration  of  his  advisers.  These  in  turn  con 
sulted  Hamilton.  Now  Pickering  had  secretly  favored  an 
alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  with  Great  Britain,  which 
that  country  much  encouraged  in  its  present  strait ;  but  Ham 
ilton,  whom  he  consulted,  was  more  circumspect,  notwith 
standing  he  favored  it  apparently  as  an  ultimate  measure. 
Without  knowing  the  extent  of  the  insult  to  which  the  embassy 
had  been  exposed  in  Paris,  Hamilton  advised  the  Cabinet 
that  a  temperate,  but  solemn  and  firm  message  should  be 
submitted  to  Congress  by  the  President,  who,  leaving  a  door 

*  See  Annals  of  Congress  and  documents  ;  5  llildreth. 


1798.  NEWS   FROM   OUR   ENVOYS.  383 

still  open  to  accommodation,  should  recommend  vigorous  meas 
ures  of  defence  against  invasion.* 

The  arrival  of  dispatches  to  the  close  of  1797  had  been 
promptly  communicated  to  Congress,  with  an  ac 
companying  notice  that  their  purport  was  unfavor 
able.     But  as  these  dispatches  were  nearly  all  in  cipher  it  took 
time  for  the  Executive  to  apply  the  key  and  ascertain  their 
contents.     On   the  19th  the  President  in  a  second 

.    f,  f-<  ^  March  19. 

message  informed  Congress  or  the  general  result  the 
Executive  had  reached  from  a  careful  consideration  of  the 
deciphered  correspondence.  Though  nothing,  he  observed,  in 
the  instructions  given  to  our  envoys  or  their  conduct  seemed 
wanting,  he  could  see  no  ground  for  expecting  that  the  objects 
of  the  mission  could  be  accomplished  "on  terms  compatible 
with  the  safety,  honor,  and  essential  interests  of  the  United 
States,"  or  that  anythiug  further  in  the  way  of  negotiation 
could  be  attempted  "consistently  with  maxims  for  which  the 
country  has  contended  at  every  hazard,  and  which  constitute 
the  basis  of  our  national  sovereignty."  Accordingly  he  re 
iterated  the  importance  of  taking  immediate  steps  for  the 
national  defence,  together  with  providing  adequately  for  sup 
plying  any  deficiency  in  the  national  revenue  which  these 
constant  depredations  on  our  commerce  might  occasion. f 

The  Cabinet  in  general  had  favored  an  immediate  declara 
tion  of  war.  Upon  Lee's  suggestion,  however,  that  our  envoys 
might  be  exposed  to  personal  danger  if  the  cipher  dispatches 
were  promulgated  before  they  got  safely  out  of  France,  the 
President  withheld  their  disclosure.  The  publication  of  the 
President's  message,  apart  from  the  correspondence  which 
evoked  it,  produced  great  excitement;  Federalists  rising  in 
spirit  while  their  opponents  became  fixed  with  amazement. 
The  friends  of  the  administration  in  Congress  undertook,  on 
the  strength  of  the  President's  convictions,  to  press  their  force 
measures  through  both  branches.;};  Already  had  the  Presi- 

*  See  6,  7  Hamilton's  Works,  March,  1798 ;  8  John  Adams's  Works. 

f  Annals  of  Congress, — Wolcott  drafted  this  message;  8  John  Adams's 
Works  ;  2-8  John  Adams's  Works. 

J  The  programme  Hamilton  submitted  was  to  have  ten  more  ships 
of  the  line,  an  increase  of  the  army  to  20,000,  together  with  30,000  as  a 


384  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

dent  withdrawn  his  circular  instruction  which  forbade  the 
collectors  to  grant  clearances  to  armed  private  vessels.  Yet 
while  French  enthusiasm  drooped  on  the  stalk,  the  House  on 
present  information  was  not  to  be  easily  moved.  Adams's 
judgment  carried  no  such  weight  as  had  Washington's;  his 
rashness,  his  readiness  "  to  fire  up  by  every  spark  that  lit  on 
his  passions,"  were  set  in  marked  contrast  with  his  predeces 
sor's  cold  deliberation  and  consistency  ;  and,  besides,  while  the 
one  President  would  have  calculated  dangers  as  a  soldier,  the 
other,  it  was  felt,  might  as  a  civilian  risk  them  with  too  little 
discretion.  In  this  instance  injustice  was  done  Adams,  whose 
course  thus  far  had  been  remarkably  circumspect,  notwith 
standing  the  narrow-mindedness  and  inflexibility  of  his  chief 
constitutional  advisers,  for  whose  suspected  disposition  to 
embroil  this  nation  in  a  war  with  France  on  England's  behalf 
he  had  to  bear  the  momentous  responsibility. 

Convinced  in  their  own  minds  that  the  President's  message 
was  but  a  new  development  of  a  party  plan  for  swinging 
America  into  the  European  war  and  accumulating  force  in 
our  Federal  head  at  a  lavish  waste  of  vital  energy,  and  deeming 
it  incredible,  too,  that  France  could  have  seriously  purposed 
waging  a  war  of  invasion  upon  America,  the  Republicans  pre 
pared  to  resist  these  new  measures.  The  legislature  of  Penn 
sylvania,  being  in  session  at  Philadelphia,  a  resolu- 

March  20.       J.  ,  . 

tion  was  there  introduced  expressing  aversion  to 
commencing  hostilities  against  a  people  "  with  whom  their 
hearts  and  hands  have  been  so  lately  united  in  friendship," 
unless  actually  invaded.  But,  such  was  the  growing  dislike 
of  France,  this  resolution  was  voted  down,  38  to  33.  Nor 
would  even  the  Quakers  petition  for  peace.  To  obstruct  in 
Congress  by  legislative  prohibition  the  President's  permission 
for  merchant  vessels  to  arm,  a  step  which  Jefferson  suggested, 
might  be  attempted  ;  but  his  wish  to  gain  time  by  getting  Con 
gress  to  adjourn  was  not  to  be  gratified  by  a  Senate  of  the 
present  complexion.  Bills,  hitherto  delayed  in  the  House,  for 

provisional  force,  besides  militia ;  efficient  fortification  at  our  chief  ports, 
an  extension  of  revenue  to  all  chief  objects  of  taxation,  with  a  loan ;  also 
the  suspension  of  our  treaties  with  France.  Hamilton's  Works,  March 
17th,  1798. 


1798.  THE   SPRIGGS    RESOLUTIONS.  385 

equipping  the  three  frigates  and  against  the  exportation  of 
arms  passed  at  once.     The  Senate,  against  feebler 
opposition,  concerted  measures  still   more  warlike. 
Ultra  Federalists  and  papers  like  Cobbett's  preached  up  a 
French  crusade. 

As  the  fruit  of  a  conference  attended  by  the  Republican 
members  of  Congress,  Spriggs,  of  Maryland,  offered  in  the 
House  at  this  juncture  three  insidious  resolutions: 

.  , .  ...  March  27. 

(1)  that  it  was  inexpedient  under  existing  circum 
stances  to  resort  to  war  against  the  French  Republic  ;  (2)  that 
arming  merchant  vessels  ought  to  be  restricted ;  (3)  that  ade 
quate  protection  for  our  seacoast  and  for  internal  defence 
should  be  provided.  The  third  appearing  to  concede  what 
was  reasonable  for  measures  purely  defensive,  the  first  of  these 
resolutions  proved  as  embarrassing  as  it  was  designed  to  be, 
and  introduced  by  Spriggs  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 
State  of  the  Union  it  had  to  be  met  openly.  Harper,  who 
now  led  in  debate  on  the  side  of  the  Federalists,  tried  to  give 
the  resolution  an  insignificant  construction;  but  Baldwin  re 
plied  that  since  the  President  and  others  had  declared  a  war 
inevitable,  it  belonged  to  Congress,  the  war-making  power,  if 
they  did  not  think  so,  to  declare  to  the  contrary.  A  debate 
was  thus  opened  full  of  personalities.  Harper  taunted  the 
Republicans  with  inconsistency  in  taking  now  the  side  of 
peace  so  tamely,  when  in  1794  they  were  so  eager  for  a  war 
with  England.  Giles  in  return  derided  Harper  as  a  turncoat, 
who  though  now  so  ready  to  fight  France,  was  once  a  member 
of  a  Jacobin  society,  and  in  1701  and  1792  a  declaimer  for 
the  rights  of  man.  Thomas  Piuckuey  earnestly  besought 
that  this  country  should  not  tamely  su-bmit  to  degradation  and 
insult  after  insult;  while  Gallatin  and  Giles  argued,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  we  would  with  better  economy  draw  into  our 
shell  and  pay  American  citizens  for  spoliations  on  their  com 
merce  rather  than  undertake  an  offensive  war  under  present 
auspices  merely  because  these  American  vessels  were  lost. 

Finding  the  sincerity  of  the  administration  and  themselves 

called  in  question,  as  well  as  the  existence  of  an  emergency  as 

great  as  had  been  represented,  the  House  Federalists  wisely 

determined  to  risk  their  cause  upon  an  actual  and  full  disclo- 

VOL.  i.— 33 


386  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

sure  of  the  mysterious  dispatches  themselves.      A  resolution 
which  called  on  the  President  for  the  correspondence 
of  the  envoys  and  their  instructions  passed  by  gen 
eral  consent. 

The  propriety  of  sending  in  this  delicate  correspondence 
had  already  been  considered  by  the  President  and  his  cabinet. 
Pickering  had  laid  much  stress  on  making  an  abstract  of  our 
French  grievances,  such  as  he  himself  would  like  to  have  pre 
pared,  and  rendering  the  disclosure  more  impressive  by  having 
the  Executive  deliver  it  from  the  Speaker's  chair.*  But  ab 
stracts  are  not  trusted  like  original  documents;  and  Wolcott 
was  for  disclosing  the  papers ;  reluctantly,  however,  as  some 
thing  which  the  situation  rendered  necessary. f  Hamilton,  on 
.the  other  hand,  had  considered  such  a  disclosure  eminently 
proper.!  And  the  President,  reaching  the  same  just  con 
clusion  in  his  own  mind,  apart  from  Hamilton,  complied  at 
once  with  the  call  of  the  House,  and  sent  in  all  the  papers  to 
Congress  the  next  day,  including  dispatches  which 
brought  the  narrative  into  the  new  year,  and  with 
holding  only  the  names  and  descriptions  of  Talleyrand's  un 
official  agents,  Hottinguer,  Bellamy,  and  Haute val,  who  in 
the  deciphered  dispatches  were  designated  as  X,  Y,  and  Z. 

The  event  proved  an  instant  and  complete  triumph  for  the 
administration.  Talleyrand's  despicable  greed  appeared  in 
such  strange  contrast  with  the  honorable  demeanor  of  our 
envoys,  and  their  assuredly  pacific  instructions,  that  the  indig 
nation  of  our  surprised  legislators  was  fully  aroused.  Those 
who  had  been  waverers  in  the  House  went  over  to  the  Presi 
dent's  side  in  a  body,  Speaker  Dayton  among  them.  With 
two-thirds  of  the  Senate,  and  a  decided  preponderance  in  the 
House,  the  administration  had  henceforth  its  own  way.  The 

*  March  23d,  1798.  That  Pickering  would  have  spiced  such  a  docu 
ment  strongly  enough  for  those  of  his  way  of  thinking  appears  suffi 
ciently  from  the  style  he  bestows  upon  the  French  government  as  "devils 
out  of  pandemonium."  But  whether  an  address  thus  delivered  would 
have  strengthened  the  administration  with  the  uncertain  members  of 
Congress,  who  wished  to  examine  the  correspondence  for  themselves,  is 
another  question. 

f  April  5th,  1798. 

J  March  23d,  1798.     See  Hamilton's  and  John  Adams's  Works. 


1798.  THE   X,    Y,    Z    DISPATCHES.  387 

brazen  doors  were  forced  open,  and  measure  after  measure 
tending  to  war  went  rapidly  through  Congress.  There  were 
bills  enacted  for  establishing  a  navy  department,*  and  author 
izing  the  President  to  provide  ten  small  vessels,f  for  further 
defence  of  the  harbors,!  for  the  purchase  of  cannon,  arms,  and 
military  stores, §  for  a  provisional  army  of  10,000  and  the 
acceptance  of  militia  volunteers,!!  for  the  recapture  of  our  ves 
sels  unlawfully  seized.^  All  commercial  intercourse  between 
the  United  States  and  France  was  declared  suspended  after 
July  1st ;  one  object  of  this  act  being  to  order  and  keep  French 
vessels  out  of  our  harbors  under  penalty  of  seizure;  but  the 
President  was  allowed  to  make  special  exceptions,  or  on  cessation 
of  French  hostilities  to  dissolve  the  prohibition  altogether.** 

Meantime  the  dispatches,  at  first  examined  by  Congress  in 
secret  session,  were,  under  the  President's  sanction,  published 
and  sent  far  and  wide  to  invoke  the  judgment  of  the  American 
people,  whose  curiosity  had  been  fully  whetted.  That  judg 
ment  was  one  of  hot  and  sweeping  condemnation  against  the 
French  Directory ;  outrages  on  American  commerce  might 
perhaps  be  borne  with  patience,  but  the  thought  of  adding 
this  nation  to  those  terror-stricken  tributaries  who  felt  com 
pelled  to  purchase  favors  of  the  government  and  its  corrupt 
ministers  apart,  was  intolerable.  The  war  spirit  of  Congress 
acted  upon  the  country,  and  that  of  the  country  stimulated 
Congress.  "  Millions  for  defence,"  became  the  cry,  "  but  not 
one  cent  for  tribute."  Towns,  and  private  societies,  grand 
jurors,  militia  companies,  merchants,  the  Cincinnati,  held 
meetings  and  prepared  addresses  to  the  President,  expressing 
full  sympathy  and  approbation  of  his  conduct.  The  black 
cockade,  a  symbol  of  patriotism  in  the  days  of  revolution,  was 
mounted  once  more,||  as  if  to  displace  the  French  tricolor 

*  Act  April  30th,  1798.  f  Act  May  4th,  1798. 

J  Act  May  3d,  1798.  \  Act  May  4th,  1798. 

||  Act  May  28th,  1798.  \  Act  May  28th,  1798. 

**  Act  June  13th,  1798. 

ft  See  5  Ilildreth.  But  hy  most  who  now  assumed  it  no  such  early 
origin  appears  to  have  been  ascribed.  The  story  is  that  Mrs.  Adams 
presented  'one  of  the  Philadelphia  delegation  which  called  upon  the 
President  with  the  black  cockade,  whence  black  cockades  became  the 
fashion. 


388  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

which  so  many  Democratic  Americans  had  worn  of  late  years, 
and  this  speedily  became  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  anti- 
Gall  icans,  so  that  whoever  dared  show  himself  in  public  with 
the  Jacobin  emblem  again  was  likely  to  have  it  torn  from  his 
hat  with  violence. 

The  young  men  of  Philadelphia  set  a  patriotic  example, 
which  was  soon  emulated  by  the  flower  of  American 
youth  in  all  sections,  including  college  students  and 
the  sous  of  sires  distinguished  in  the  struggle  for  independence, 
Damely,  that  of  meeting  to  tender  their  services  to  the  Presi 
dent  as  soldiers.*  Zealous  addresses  of  sympathy  from  old  and 
young  reached  the  administration,  to  which  signatures  were 
appended  by  the  cohort,  that  of  Philadelphia  alone  bearing 
5000  names.  Hopkinson's  still  popular  "Hail  Columbia" 
was  composed  at  this  time  and  set  to  the  "  President's  March." 
The  song  elicited  repeated  encores  and  the  wildest  delight 
when  sung  at  the  theatre  in  Philadelphia.  Another  patriotic 
song,  also  very  popular,  was  brought  out  soon  after  in  Boston, 
entitled  "Adams  and  Liberty,"  Paine,  of  that  city,  being  the 
author.  On  public  occasions  these  two  spirited  compositions 
became  in  immense  demand,  both  American  productions,  and 
pitched  alike  to  the  popular  key  of  resistance  to  an  invading 
foe.f  / 

K"  These  young  men,  1200  in  number,  marched  in  a  body  with  their 
address  to  the  President's  house,  bearing  the  American  standard  and 
wearing  the  American  cockade.  See  newspapers  of  the  day. 

f  Both  Hail  Columbia  and  Adams  and  Liberty  (which  latter  was 
brought  out  for  the  first  time,  according  to  previous  announcement,  at 
the  anniversary  meeting  in  Boston  of  the  "Massachusetts  Charitable  Fire 
Society,  June  1st),  have  the  throb  of  this  enthusiastic  season.  Some 
favorite  singer  commonly  sang  the  separate  stanzas,  with  a  chorus  to 
take  up  the  refrain.  Of  the  two  compositions,  Adams  and  Liberty  is 
the  more  ambitious  in  style,  besides  the  superior  in  poetical  merit  | 
particularly  the  bold  imagery  of  the  verse  which  describes  Washington 
as  standing  at  the  portal  of  Freedom's  temple  and  repelling  the  tempest 
of  war.  But  with  the  later  unpopularity  of  Adams,  and  the  fact  of  its 
own  peculiar  adaptation  to  a  passing  occasion,  this  song  enjoyed  but  an 
ephemeral  fame.  The  more  martial  strain  of  the  air  to  Hail  Columbia, 
the  greater  brevity  of  the  language,  and  the  simplicity,  or  common- 


1798.  THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIBERTY.  38& 

A  day  of  national  fasting  and  prayer,  which  the  President 
specially  appointed,  was  generally  observed.  And 

J .        l  .  ..••,,        May  8. 

this  passionate  outburst  of  American  spirit  reached 
a   climax   on  the   independence  anniversary   of  1798,  when 
the  revolutionary  watch  (ires  of  the  North  were  kin 
dled  at  the  old  altar.     On  that  day  the  native-born 
sported   the   black    cockade ;   in   some   towns  Talleyrand,  as 
the  apostate  bishop  of  An  tun,  was  burned  in  effigy  in  his  sur 
plice;  and  at  every  public  feast  the  toast  was  drunk  heartily 
which  applauded  the  firmness  of  the  President,  whose  claims 
for  gratitude  were  specially  to  be  remembered  on  this  great 
calendar  day.     To  the  strain  uplifted  by  hundreds  of  choirs 
the  response  was  echoed  from  many  thousand  warm -beating 
hearts : 

"  For  ne'er  shall  the  sons  of  Columbia  be  slaves 
While  the  earth  bears  a  plant  or  the  sea  rolls  its  waves." 

Republicanism  dragged  in  the  mire  during  this  hour  of  pa 
triotic  zeal.  The  party  failed  to  recover  lost  ground  in  the 
spring  and  summer  elections  at  the  eastward.  "  Federal- 
Americans,"  as  they  called  themselves  for  the  time  being, 
carried  New  England  in  phalanx.  New  York  re-elected  Jay 
as  governor  by  more  than  2000  votes  over  his  competitor, 
Chancellor  Livingston  ;  a  Republican  defeat  only  partially  off 
set  by  the  choice  for  members  of  Congress  from  that  State  of 
six  out  of  ten,  including  Edward  Livingston,  who  had  secured 
his  re-election  by  making  a  show  of  yielding  to  the  war  fever. 
Newspapers  hitherto  reckoned  neutral  came  out  strongly  in 
support  of  the  administration  and  its  policy,  while  the  Aurora 
and  other  steadfast  Republican  presses  staggered  from  the 
sudden  loss  to  their  circulation. 

placeness,  so  to  speak,  of  the  ideas,  commended  Hopkinson's  song  to  a 
permanent  place  among  American  national  airs. 

In  each  of  these  songs,  as  originally  sung,  the  last  verse  but  one 
made  Washington  the  theme,  and  the  last,  President  Adams.  But  the 
Adams  verse  commencing : 

"  Behold  the  chief  who  now  commands," 

was  long  ago  dropped  from  Hail  Columbia,  this  indicating  fairly  that 
reversal  of  fickle  favor  which  the  President  had  soon  to  encounter.  See 
Centinel  and  other  newspapers,  May-July,  1798. 


390  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  Aurora,  which  was  charged  with  being  a  hireling  sheet  of 
the  French,  had  gone  so  far  as  to  argue  that  it  would  be  better 
to  comply  with  the  demands  of  France  and  pay  money  down 
than  incur  the  greater  risks  and  expenditures  of  war.  Bat  the 
pusillanimous  policy  of  avoiding  immediate  war  by  a  temporiz 
ing  purchase  of  peace,  though  hitherto  pursued  by  the  adminis 
tration  toward  the  Barbary  powers,  and  confirmed  with  them  in 
fact  by  a  recent  treaty,  was  repudiated  as  inadmissible  by  the 
more  influential  Republican  leaders.  For  this  reason  chiefly  the 
Spriggs  resolutions  in  the  House  had  been  abandoned,  and  the 
position  which  the  party  sought  to  occupy  in  Congress  was  that 
of  agreeing  to  all  measures  of  internal  defence,  while  opposing 
external  preparations.*  Even  this,  in  the  encroaching  temper 
of  the  country,  was  found  untenable  ground ;  and  the  bolder 
administration  war  measures  made  such  ready  way  in  Congress, 
that  Giles,  Nicholas,  and  many  other  opposition  members  of  the 
House,  despairing  of  influence  in  that  body,  began  to  leave  for 
their  homes  about  the  last  of  April,  so  that  the  House  passed 
bills  of  weighty  consequence  with  little  more  than  a  quorum 
present.  Gallatin,  however,  stood  manfully  by  his  guns,  de 
spite  all  ridicule  and  obloquy,  and  with  a  forlorn  hope  attacked 
whatever  measures  might  seem  designed  to  provoke  an  ag 
gressive  war;  accomplishing,  however,  scarcely  more  than  in 
the  bill  which  provided  for  new  armed  vessels  to  reduce  the 
number  originally  intended,  and  failing  in  the  further  effort  to 
exclude  their  employment  as  convoys. 

In  the  midst  of  this  political  excitement  Marshall  landed 
at  New  York  on  his  return  from  Paris,  and  the 
Federalists  prepared  to  treat  him  with  especial  dis 
tinction.  He  was  escorted  into  Philadelphia  by  the  city  cavalry, 
the  Secretary  of  State  with  many  others  in  carriages  having 
gone  out  to  meet  him.     The  bells  rang  and  an  immense  crowd 
collected;  and  shortly  after  the  Federal  members  of  Congress 
entertained  him  at  a  public  dinner.     Here,  and  at  his  later 
ovation  in  Richmond,  Marshall  expressed  himself 

August  8.          .   . 

with  his  usual  sobriety,  avowing,  nevertheless,  a  be 
lief  that  accommodation  with  France  on  terms  consistent  with 
American  independence  was  impracticable. 

*  See  4  Jefferson's  Works,  April  12th,  1798. 


1798.  FRENCH    MISSION    ENDED.  391 

Marshall's  arrival  signified  to  his  excited  countrymen  that 
the  joint  negotiations  with  the  French  Republic  had  termi 
nated  and  that  unfavorably.  The  President's  communica 
tions  to  Congress  earlier  in  the  month  indicated  that 

,.  m  .     .  June  5-18. 

such  an  issue  was  impending.  Iransmitting  now 
the  concluding  dispatches  of  the  joint  embassy,  which  Mar 
shall  had  brought  to  Philadelphia  with  him,  together  with  a 
written  disclaimer  from  Gerry  of  authority  to  conclude  nego 
tiations  alone,  besides  his  nervous  explanation  to  the  President 
of  his  reasons  for  remaining,  Adams  declared  that 

June  21. 

negotiations  were  at  an  end,  and  made  that  state 
ment  to  Congress,  afterwards  so  famous :  "  I  will  never  send 
another  minister  to  France  without  assurances  that  he  will  be 
received,  respected,  and  honored  as  the  representative  of  a 
great,  free,  powerful,  and  independent  nation." 

The  same  message  from  the  President  covered  peremptory 
instructions  from  Pickering  to  the  envoys,  issued  upon  the 
disclosure  of  the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches,  commanding: 

,  1,1.  •  „  March  23. 

them  to  demand  their  passports  and  return,  ir  not 
in  actual  treaty  with  authorized  persons  upon  its  receipt,  or  if 
they  should  discover  that  the  French  government  was  pro 
crastinating  and  uncandid,  and  in  no  event  to  purchase  a 
treaty  with  money,  by  loan  or  otherwise.  This  letter  had  not 
arrived  at  Paris  when  Marshall  left;  but  not  to  leave  Gerry 
to  gather  thence  alone  the  policy  his  government  meant  to 
pursue  at  this  crisis,  the  secretary  at  once  sent  after 

i  .  ,  i      i       *•  •    •         •       T  June  25. 

him  a  sharp  rebuke  for  remaining  in  disparagement 

of  men  like  Pinckuey  and  Marshall,  and  ordered  him  home 

summarily.* 

On  the  publication  of  the  last  dispatches  communicated  to 
Congress,  and  the  President's  fearless  message,  which  showed 
that  our  administration  dared  and  even  invited  the  rupture 
for  which  both  Talleyrand  and  the  envoys  had  diplomatically 
evaded  responsibility,  popular  excitement  in  America  rose  to 
fever  heat.  Ten  thousand  copies  of  these  last  dispatches  were 
printed  and  circulated.  Edward  Livingston,  in  the  House, 
moved  that  the  President  be  respectfully  addressed 

i  .    .  i       .  ,  July  2, 3. 

to  order  our  remaining  envoy  to  proceed  with  the 
*  See  Annals  of  Congress,  Appendix. 


392  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

negotiation  so  far  as  might  consist  with  the  instructions  of 
March  23d,  but  the  resolution  was  pronounced  infamous  on 
the  Federal  side,  and  voted  down  by  51  to  30.  The  response 
of  the  country  vindicated  the  President's  treatment  of  French 
relations  to  this  point  as  generous,  honest,  and  dignified. 

For  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  career  honest,  John  Adams, 
after  years  passed  in  the  battle  and  storm  of  public  life,  tasted 
the  tantalizing  pleasure  of  administering  the  affairs  of  a  na 
tion  whose  heart  bounded  towards  him  with  the  fresh  impulse 
of  implicit  confidence  and  unrestrained  affection.  Not  hon 
ored  by  such  demonstrations  to  the  exclusion  of  his  immortal 
predecessor,  he  was,  nevertheless,  ranked  with  him  in  song,  and 
seemed  for  the  moment  to  soar  to  that  same  eyrie,  far  above 
the  reach  of  angry  faction,  which  Presidents  yearn  after  but 
seldom  attain.  He  had  Washington's  zealous  approval  of  his 
course,  besides  the  enviable  reputation,  on  his  own  part,  of  a 
patriot  sage  who  had  forecast  events  and  warned  an  incredu 
lous  public  to  prepare  seasonably  against  coming  dangers.* 

But  two  circumstances  rendered  this  a  most  perilous  mo 
ment,  both  for  Adams  and  the  party  to  which  he  belonged  : 
(1.)  The  expectation  of  a  French  war  with  the  consent  of 
France  was  exaggerated.  (2.)  The  opportunity  of  legislating 
so  freely  under  the  pressure  of  excitement  and  while  the  op 
position  was  thus  humbled  carried  with  it  an  almost  irresist 
ible  temptation  to  the  abuse  of  power.  Unselfish  and  disin 
terested  as  the  President  showed  himself  in  his  main  career, 
he  was  not  free  from  vanity  nor,  in  his  present  triumph,  a 
certain  elation  of  spirits.  As  for  his  party,  in  which  political 
counsels  were  much  divided,  there  appeared  so  much  of  pur-, 
blind  leadership,  with  so  little  deference  to  the  public  wishes, 
that  the  new  war  policy  with  France  was  at  once  distended 
for  the  proscription  of  French  defenders  in  America,  or  rather 
so  as  to  suppress  all  hostile  criticism  of  the  Federal  adminis 
tration  as  Federalists  themselves  might  choose  to  direct  it. 
Interpreting  the  present  experience  of  France  as  on  the  whole 

*  Newspapers  of  the  day  praised  Adams  as  the  American  Herschel, 
who  discovered  the  approach  of  the  baneful  French  comet  before  his 
fellow-citizens.  See  Boston  Centinel,  etc. 


1798.  FEDERALISM   OVER-ZEALOUS.  393 

unfavorable  to  popular  liberty  and  free  speech,  they  resolved 
to  show  their  own  disbelief  in  French  Jacobinism  by  stifling 
liberty  and  free  speech  at  home,  in  the  expectation  that  by 
compelling  the  populace  of  America  they  would  render  the 
American  republic  all  the  stronger. 

The  three  measures  to  procure  whose  passage  the  party 
leaders  of  Federalism  in  Congress  now  overstepped  the  bounds 
of  political  discretion,  availing  themselves  of  their  sudden 
supremacy  in  the  two  houses,  were  these:  (1)  The  new  natu 
ralization  act;  (2)  the  alien  acts;  (3)  the  sedition  act.  The 
Vice-President  .early  apprised  Madison  that  these  enactments 
\vere  under  consideration.  "  One  of  the  war  party,"  he  wrote, 
April  26th,  "  in  a  fit  of  unguarded  passion  declared  some  time 
ago  they  would  pass  a  citizen  bill,  an  alien  bill,  and  a  sedi 
tion  bill.  Accordingly,  some  days  ago,  Coit  laid  a 
motion  on  the  table  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
for  modifying  the  citizen  law.  Their  threats  pointed  at  Gal- 
latin,  and  it  is  believed  they  will  endeavor  to  reach  him  by 
this  bill.  Yesterday  Hillhouse  laid  on  the  table  of 

.       "'  .     .  April  25. 

the  Senate  a  motion  for  giving  power  to  send  away 
suspected  aliens.  This  is  understood  to  be  meant  for  Volney 
and  Collot.  But  it  will  not  stop  there  when  it  gets  into  a 
course  of  execution.  There  is  now  only  wanting  to  accom 
plish  the  whole  declaration  before  mentioned  a  sedition  bill, 
which  we  shall  certainly  soon  see  proposed.  The  object  of 
that  is  the  suppression  of  the  Whig  presses.  Bache's  has  been 
particularly  named."* 

(1.)  The  New  Naturalization  Act.  —  This  prolonged  the 
requisite  term  of  residence  in  the  United  States  preliminary  to 
•qualifying  for  citizenship  from  five  years,  as  hitherto,  to  four 
teen,  rendered  the  process  of  naturalization  more  stringent 
than  before,  and  at  once  placed  all  white  aliens  who  resided 
or  might  hereafter  arrive  in  the  United  States  under  a  system 
of  surveillance,  by  requiring  them  to  be  reported  and  regis 
tered.  Alien  enemies  could  not  become  citizens  at  all. 

Had  there  been  some  constitutional  means  of  driving  the 
obstructive  Gallatin  out  of  public  life  under  this  bill,  many 

*  Jefferson's  Works,  April  26th,  1798, 


394  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

of  those  Federalist  legislators  would  gladly  have  employed 
them  who  now  sought  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  his  career. 
"  It  is  high  time  for  us,"  declared  Harper  earnestly 
in  the  House  debate,  "  to  recover  from  the  mistake 
with  which  we  set  out  under  the  Constitution  of  admitting 
foreigners  to  citizenship;  for  nothing  but  birth  should  entitle 
a  man  to  citizenship,  and  we  ought  so  to  declare  it."  Otis, 
preaching  from  the  same  text,  proceeded  to  offer  a  resolution 
that  no  alien-born  should  hereafter  hold  office  under  the 
United  States,  unless  at  present  a  citizen  thereof.  But  the 
better  impression  prevailed  that  the  Constitution  indicated 
qualifications  of  its  own,  upon  alienage  and  office-holding, 
which  could  not  be  extended  by  legislation ;  so  the  majority 
rested  upon  the  right  of  assigning  a  long  term  of  probation 
for  citizenship,  added  to  which  would  be  seven  to  nine  years 
necessarily,  before  any  one  foreign-born  could  become  eligible 
to  Congress.* 

(2.)  The  Alien  Acts. — Towards  that  large  class  of  inhabi 
tants  in  the  United  States  which  the  new  and  restrictive  natu 
ralization  law  would  have  immensely  increased  and  rendered 
doubly  turbulent  in  their  long  period  of  uncertain  allegiance 
and  irresponsibility,  an  extremely  arbitrary  and  oppressive 
policy  was  next  sanctioned.  Upon  plea  of  the  civil  C9mmo- 
tious  engendered  from  the-  permitted  residence  of  aliens  and 
other  disaffected  persons  in  the  United  States,  aliens  were  ex 
posed  not  only  to  a  summary  banishment  from  the  United  States 
without  any  assigned  cause,  but  to  summary  banishment  at 
the  President's  sole  discretion.  No  guilt,  no  accusation,  was 
here  needful,  nor  could  the  most  dutiful  behavior  afford  sure 
immunity  against  such  deportation.  Aliens  were  here  dis 
tinguished:  (1)  as  alien  friends,  or  rather  aliens  generally;  (2) 
as  alien  enemies. 

As  to  the  former,  the  bill  which  finally  passed  Congress, 
and  whose  continuance  was  at  length  limited  to  two  years, 
permitted  the  President  to  order  all  such  aliens  as  he  should 
judge  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  United  States 

*  See  Act  June  18th,  1798  ;  Annals  of  Congress.  This  act  was  repealed 
in  1802,  and  the  term  of  naturalization  was  once  more  fixed  at  five 
yearg,  from  which  it  has  not  since  greatly  varied. 


1798.  THE  ALIEN   ACTS.  395 

or  should  have  reasonable  grounds  to  suspect  were  concerned 
in  any  treasonable  or  secret  machinations  against  the  govern 
ment,  to  depart  within  a  certain  time  expressed  in  his  order. 
If  the  alien  thus  notified  was  afterwards  found  at  large  with  gut 
the  President's  license,  he  was  liable  to  imprisonment  for  three 
years  and  never  afterwards  could  be  admitted  to  citizenship. 
An  alien  might  be  licensed  by  the  President  to  remain  on 
furnishing  security.  Aliens  imprisoned  under  the  act  might 
be  sent  forcibly  out  of  the  country  whenever  the  President 
deemed  it  for  the  public  safety,  and  if  any  alien  so  arrested 
and  sent  out  of  the  country  returned  voluntarily  without  per 
mission  he  might  be  imprisoned  as  long  as  the  President 
thought  the  public  safety  required  it.  Besides  the  registry 
required  under  the  naturalization  act,  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
the  President's  espionage  of  aliens  extended  to  compelling 
masters  of  vessels  on  their  arrival  to  report  all  alien  pas 
sengers.* 

This,  the  familiar  Alien  Act,  which  stands  without  a  parallel 
in  American  legislation,  contained  still  harsher  features  as  the 
bill  originally  passed  the  Senate ;  rendering,  for  instance, 
any  alien  who  returned  after  having  been  sent  out  of  the 
country  liable  to  imprisonment  and  hard  labor  for  life,  a  harsh 
punishment  certainly  for  so  equivocal  a  crime.  The  amended 
bill  passed  the  House  by  46  to  40,  being  strenuously  opposed 
by  Gallatin  and  Livingston,  but  for  whose  efforts  it  would 
probably  have  retained  more  of  the  brutal  vagueness  which  first 
characterized  it.  These  speakers  (of  whom  the  former  felt  the 
disadvantage  of  having  his  foreign  nationality  satirically  cast 
into  his  teeth  as  though  it  were  matter  of  reproach)  opposed  in 
augurating  this  uncongenial  policy  of  making  the  President  an 
autocrat,  interfering  with  the  sacred  right  of  trial  by  jury,  and 
discouraging  that  migration  from  abroad  which  had  hitherto 
been  encouraged  by  this  government  as  a  public  gain  in  popu 
lation,  wealth,  and  commerce. 

Another  act  of  the  session  dealt  more  especially  with  that 
second  class  known  as  "  alien  enemies,"  and  this  permitted  the 
President  in  time  of  war  or  invasion,  under  a  suitable  procla« 

*  Act  June  25th,  1798. 


396  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

mation,  to  apprehend,  restrain, 'or  remove  all  natives,  citizens, 
denizens,  or  subjects  of  the  hostile  government,  on  such  terms 
as  he  might  see  fit  to  impose.* 

In  both  of  the  alien  acts  provision  was  made  that  the  prop 
erty  rights  of  those  who  might  thus  be  summarily  removed 
should  be  respected.  There  appeared  likewise  a  vague  pre 
tence  of  invoking  the  judicial  process  by  the  aid  of  Federal 
marshals ;  but  the  true  purport  of  these  laws  was  plainly  to 
trust  the  President's  own  discretion,  thereby  rendering  the 
judicial  machinery  ancillary  to  the  executive,  and,  in  fact, 
marshals  were  to  execute  the  President's  will  without  any  re 
course  whatever  to  the  courts. 

(3.)  The  Sedition  Ad. — A  House  committee,  of  which 
Sewall,  of  Massachusetts,  was  chairman,  reported  a  bill  to  pre 
vent  and  restrain  "seditious  practices."  But  before 

June  4.  ,  , 

this  could  be  acted  upon  a  more  general  enactment 

came  from  the  Senate.     As  introduced  in  the  latter  branch  by 

Lloyd,  of  Maryland,  the  Senate  bill  aimed  to  define 

June  26.  J  .  .  ,.   . 

and  punish  both  treason  and  sedition.  Its  nrst  sec 
tion  declared  the  people  of  France  to  be  the  enemies  of  the 
United  States,  and  adherence  to  them,  giving  them  aid  and 
comfort,  to  be  treason,  punishable  with  death  ;  section  second 
related  to  misprision  of  treason;  section  third  was  like  section 
first  of  the  act  as  finally  passed ;  and  section  fourth  provided 
for  punishing  by  fine  and  imprisonment  any  person  who  should 
attempt  to  justify  the  hostile  conduct  of  the  French,  or  to  de 
fame  or  weaken  the  government  or  laws  of  the  United  States 
by  any  seditious  or  inflammatory  declarations  or  expressions 
tending  to  induce  a  belief  that  the  government  or  any  of  its 
officers  were  influenced  by  motives  hostile  to  the  Constitution 
or  to  the  liberties  and  happiness  of  the  people.  The  most  ob 
jectionable  features  of  this  Senate  bill  so  alarmed  Hamilton 
when  he  saw  it  in  print  that  he  quickly  remonstrated  ,f  and 

*  In  the  first  draft  of  this  bill  it  was  made  a  crime  punishable  by 
seizure  and  imprisonment  and  without  due  process  of  law,  "to  harbor  or 
conceal  "  an  alien  enemy.  Act  July  6th,  1798. 

f  "  Let  us  not  establish  a  tyranny ;  energy  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  violence."  Hamilton  to  Wolcott,  June  29th,  1798,  Hamilton's 
Works. 


1798.  THE  SEDITION   ACT.  397 

the  bill  did  not  in  fact  pass  the  Senate,  by  12  to  6,  before  the 
first  two  sections  were  stricken  out  and  the  others  somewhat 
modified. 

With  the  bill  enacted  in  this  shape  one  could  hardly  in 
public  speech  have  criticised  the  constitutionality  of  an  act 
of  Congress,  or  censured  an  officer  under  the  present  adminis 
tration  as  he  might  deserve,  without  incurring  the  risk  of  a 
public  prosecution,  instigated  by  interested  parties.  And  as 
to  "seditious  or  inflammatory"  declarations,  what  language 
short  of  slavish  submission  to  the  powers  that  be  and  their 
mandates  might  not  be  imputed  as  snch  if  one  sought  to  per 
suade  another  to  vote  like  himself?  Livingston  could  not, 
under  the  Constitution,  be  arrested  for  speaking  as  a  member 
of  the  House  against  the  alien  act,  and  excitedly  exclaiming 
that  its  principle  "  would  have  disgraced  the  age  of  Gothic 
barbarity  ;"  but  Otis  declared  that  this  very  speech  was  "  evi 
dence  of  seditious  disposition,"  and  Livingston,  justifying  him 
self  to  his  constituents  afterwards  or  declaiming  on  the  can 
vass  for  a  repeal  of  that  infamous  act,  might  become  amena 
ble.  In  the  present  House  debate  one  Federalist  speaker  read 
extracts  from  the  Aurora,  which  he  pronounced  seditious,  but 
which  would  now  appear  to  be  no  more  than  a  sharp  and 
unsparing  criticism  of  the  Federal  policy  and  the  avowal  of 
political  opinions  averse  to  his  own.* 

The  domestic  tyranny  proposed  by  this  Sedition  Act,  the 
blow  it  aimed  at  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press, 
the  attempt  thus  made  to  forestall  all  constitu 
tional  doubts  and  all  legitimate  criticism  respecting  Congres 
sional  measures,  these  and  the  like  objections  were  pointed  out 
in  debate  by  Nicholas,  Livingston,  Gallatiu,  and  Macon,  of 
the  Republican  side,  with  great  force  of  expression.  Harrison 
called  for  a  reading  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
"  Where,"  asks  Nicholas,  "  is  the  line  the  gentlemen  claim  be 
tween  liberty  and  license?  The  heart  and  life  of  a  free  gov 
ernment  is  a  free  press."  "Error  can  be  successfully  opposed 

*  One  of  these  extracts  contained  an  appeal  to  Irishmen  not  to  enlist 
in  the  fight  against  France  while  the  Alien  Act  put  their  rights  of  citizen 
ship  in  such  jeopardy ;  an  appeal,  one  must  say,  which  was  not  under 
the  circumstances  unprovoked,  nor  wholly  irrational. 


398  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

by  truth,"  says  Gallatin,  "  and  argument  is  the  weapon." 
To  this  Dana  made  the  specious  response  that  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper  should  "  dare  to  utter  what  is  true,  and  dread  to 
utter  anything  that  is  false."  But  as  to  what  might  be  the 
infallible  criterion  of  political  truth  he  was  silent. 

This  opposition  forced  changes  in  the  phraseology  of  the  bill. 
Bayard,  though  a  Federalist,  procured  the  desirable 
amendment,  which  mitigated  the  common  law  of 
libel  by  allowing  the  truth  to  be  given  in  evidence  by  the 
defendant,  in  accordance  with  fundamental  provisions  observed 
only  in  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  and  Vermont  at  the  present 
period.  An  amendment  was  also  carried  in  the  House  limit 
ing  the  continuance  of  the  act.  Thus  altered,  and  with  refer 
ence  more  to  seditious  writing  and  printing  than  speaking,  the 
bill  passed  the  House  by  44  to  41. 

As  finally  approved  by  the  President,  the  well-known  Sedi 
tion  Act  in  its  first  section  made  it  a  high  misdemeanor,  pun 
ishable  by  a  fine  of  $5000  and  five  years'  imprisonment,  for 
persons  to  unlawfully  combine  and  conspire  to  oppose  any 
measures  of  the  government  directed  by  proper  authority,  or 
to  impede  the  operation  of  any  law  of  the  United  States,  or 
to  intimidate  persons  from  taking  or  holding  Federal  office,  or 
to  commit,  advise,  or  attempt  to  procure  any  insurrection,  riot, 
or  unlawful  assembly.  Section  second  declares  that  the 
writing,  printing,  or  publishing  of  "  any  false,  scandalous,  and 
malicious  writings "  against  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  or  either  house  of  Congress,  or  the  President,  with  in 
tent  to  defame  or  bring  any  of  them  into  contempt  or  disrepute, 
or  to  excite  against  any  of  them  the  hatred  of  the  good  people 
of  the  United  States,  or  to  stir  up  sedition  within  the  United 
States,  or  to  excite  any  unlawful  combinations  therein  for 
opposing  or  resisting  any  law  or  lawful  executive  act,  should 
be  punished,  on  conviction  before  the  United  States  court 
having  jurisdiction,  by  a  fine  not  exceeding  $2000  and  impris 
onment  not  exceeding  two  years.  Section  third  permits  the 
truth  of  the  matter  contained  in  the  publication  to  be  given 
in  evidence  as  a  good  defence,  the  jury  to  determine  law  and 
fact  under  the  court's  direction.* 

*  Act  July  14th,  1798 ;  Annals  of  Congress. 


1798.  THE   SEDITION   ACT.  399 

The  Sedition  Act,  as  it  passed  the  Senate,  must  have  been 
obnoxious  to  that  constitutional  amendment  which  forbade^ all 
infringement  of  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press;  and 
though  carefully  remodelled  with  the  intent  of  evading  so 
fatal  an  objection  it  was  still  obnoxious  thereto,  in  spirit  cer 
tainly,  and  not  unlikely  in  letter.  But  in  another  aspect  this 
act  was  certainly  quite  reprehensible,  as  Gallatiu  and  Living 
ston  had  contended  in  debate  against  Otis;  for,  according  to  a 
final  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  rendered  many  years  after, 
the  criminal  jurisdiction  of  ihe  United  States  courts  did  not, 
as  so  many  of  the  American  bench  and  bar  at  present  con 
tended,  embrace  common-law  offences ;  in  other  words,  while 
libel  and  sedition,  common-law  crimes,  could  be  punished  in 
State  courts  accordingly,  courts  of  the  Federal  government 
exercised  no  corresponding  functions,  but  were  remitted  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  crimes  properly  declared  such  under  the  Consti 
tution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  even  though  Federal 
officials  were  the  aggrieved  parties.  This  was  no  finical  dis 
tinction,  for  as  to  libels  against  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  kindred  political  offences,  there  was  far  less  like 
lihood  of  procuring  punishment  were  the  culprit  amenable  only 
to  the  courts  of  his  own  State,  where,  too,  even  after  convic-" 
tion,  a  governor's  pardon  might  set  him  free. 

These  measures,  all  born  of  a  single  session, — the  new  Natu 
ralization  Act,  the  Alien  Acts,  and  the  Sedition  Act, — for 
which  the  Federalist  leaders  were  solelyjesponsiblc,  apart  from 
their  constituencies,  weighted  their  party  and  the  administration 
with  all  the  odium  of  a  wilful  attempt  to  crush  out  political 
opponents  rather  than  win  them,  and  to  weed  the  foreign-born 
out  of  their  ranks.  The  spirit  of  American  institutions,  and 
those  safeguards  which  our  Constitution  had  diligently  provided, 
forbade  the  extensive  execution  of  such  laws  in  the  sense  de 
sired,  while  in  the  end  that  sullen  obstinacy  with  which  the 
authors  clung  to  their  miserable  experiment,  regardless  of  the 
voice  of  popular  warning,  overwhelmed  Federalism  presently 
with  such  utter  disaster  that  it  sank  to  rise  no  more. 

These  acts  were  not  passed  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce  and 
bloody  revolution  nor  while  a  foreign  war  was  raging,  for  then 
the  violence,  temporary  only,  and  vindicated  or  else  atoned 


400  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

afterwards,  might  have  been  forgiven.  Indeed,  they  were  pro 
jected,  and  that  too  in  their  very  worst  shape,  before  any  tid 
ings  of  the  French  mission  beyond  the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches 
had  reached  this  country,  when  it  was  not  certain  that  our 
embassy  would  fail  ;  in  a  season,  doubtless,  of  great  public 
excitement,  but  where  that  excitement  was  directed  to  repel 
ling  in  effect  the  expected  invaders  who  had  not  approached 
these  shores  and  never  would.  A  sort  of  photophobia  at  this 
time  afflicted  intelligent  statesmen,  who,  allowing  little  for 
the  good  sense  and  spirit  of  Americans,  or  our  geographical 
disconnection  from  France,  were  crazed  with  the  fear  that 
this  Union  might  be  made  over  to  some  European  potentate 
like  Venice,  or  chained  in  the  same  galley  with  Switzerland 
or  Holland  to  do  the  Directory's  bidding.  The  only  ground 
on  which  the  Federalists  sought  openly  to  justify  their  pres 
ent  extreme  measures  was  the  suppression  of  all  combinations 
between  American  Democrats  and  the  French  army  against 
our  aristocrats  and  the  ruling  class  ;  combinations  which  Har 
per  and  others  affirmed  were  here,  but  for  whose  existence  not 
the  slightest  proof  ever  appeared  beyond,  possibly,  that  af 
forded  by  a  rare  admission  of  communications  from  foreign 
official  sources  into  the  columns  of  some  party  newspapers, 
while  the  evidence  is  positive  that  our  most  influential  Re 
publicans,  like  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Gallatin,  knew  noth 
ing  whatever  of  French  relations  at  this  period,  outside  the 
usual  channels  which  our  Executive  controlled.  That,  be 
sides  this  unfounded  fear,  operated  the  desire  of  ultra  Feder 
alists  to  take  revenge  upon  those  presses  which  had  assailed 
the  British  treaty  and  other  pet  measures  and  abused  Federal 
leaders,  and  the  determination  to  entrench  themselves  in  au 
thority  by  forcibly  disbanding  an  opposition  party  which  had 
attracted  a  readier  support  at  the  polls  from  the  oppressed  of 
other  countries,  like  the  Irish,  Scotch,  and  French  immi 
grants,  no  candid  writer  can  at  this  day  question.  In  order 
to  accomplish  their  main  purpose,  the  Federalists  in  the  Alien 
Acts,  as  though  the  Constitution  were  framed  to  protect  na 
tives  alone,  deliberately  set  aside  trial  by  jury,  and  subjected 
those  whom  this  government  had  but  recently  encouraged  to 
seek  an  asylum  and  speedy  citizenship  to  the  arbitrary  dis- 


1798,  A    PARTY   TYRANNY.  401 

posal,  alien  friends  and  alien  enemies  alike,  of  the  chief  ex 
ecutive  ;  and  in  the  Sedition  Act,  distrusting  the  political  bias 
or  tenderer  forbearance  of  State  courts  and  prosecutors,  they 
committed  the  accusation  and  sentence  to  Federal  officers  and 
tribunals, — in  either  case  violating  the  spirit  of  our  fundamen 
tal  ordinance  in  order  to  insure  a  direction  of  the  machinery 
favorable  to  their  party  ends. 

To  this  persecuting  policy,  in  its  full  significance,  the  pres 
ent  Federalist  leaders,  with  the  exception  of  their  greatest, 
Hamilton  (himself  an  alien-born,  and  of  a  mind  too~ compre 
hensive  in  its  grasp  not  to  take  in  dangers  which  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  others),  at  this  period  strongly  committed  them 
selves.  Adams,  whose  practice  proved  kinder  here  than  his 
theory,  dropped,  in  some  of  his  more  indiscreet  responses  to 
the  patriotic  addresses,  angry  threats  of  an  authority  to  cor 
rect  the  delusions  which  had  led  so  many  astray.  The  stern 
and  relentless  Secretary  of  State  feared  only  that  the  meas 
ures  as  actually  passed  did  not  go  far  enough.  Not  a  Feder 
alist  member  of  Congress  had  an  apologetic  word  to  utter  for 
invading  rights  held  hitherto  sacred,  nor  a  regret  to  express 
that  political  censors  and  the  press  needed  the  shackles. 
Ames  and  other  able  advisers  of  the  party  approved  the  pres 
ent  legislation  fully.*  And  to  such  a  pitch  of  native  Ameri 
can  madness  was  the  black  cockade  spirit  worked  by  those  in 
whose  direction  our  patriotic  youth  too  implicitly  trusted,  that 
legislatures  in  Massachusetts  and  several  other  States  won-ap- 
plause  by  proposing  a  constitutional  amendment  for  disquali 
fying  from  service  in  Congress  all  but  native-born  citizens,  or 
those  resident  in  the  United  States  at  and  since  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence;  thus  contriving  an  affront  to  Gallatin, 
though,  of  course,  accomplishing  nothing  further. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts  were 
not  so  dangerous,  as  actually  passed,  as  they  appeared  in  the 
preliminary  stages.  But  we  are  to  judge  of  the  political 
animus  of  a  party  in  no  slight  degree  by  what  it  attempts  ;  and, 
as  a  historical  fact,  to  the  opposition  at  a  late  stage  of  the 

'x~  Ames  was  so  intolerant  that  lie  refused  afterwards  to  trust  John 
Marshall,  because  the  latter  did  not  believe  in  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
laws.     Hee  narrative,  post ;  Cabot's  Life,  147. 
VOL.  i. — 34 


402  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

very  members  whose  discomfiture  was  thereby  intended  and 
the  very  newspapers  to  be  throttled,  rather  than  to  the  liberal 
inclinations  of  partisans  who  fathered  these  measures,  we  owe 
it  chiefly  that  the  Naturalization,  Alien,  and  Sedition  Acts 
stopped  short  of  a  tyranny,  utterly  detestable ;  so  true  is  it,  as 
the  House  showed  by  comparison  with  the  Senate,  that  the 
salvation  of  a  political  majority  lies  in  the  constant  need  of 
confronting  a  vigorous  minority. 

We  may  also  concede  that  President  Adams  never  enforced 
the  Alien  Acts.  But  this  evinced  a  healthy  repugnance  on 
his  part  to  becoming  the  efficient  instrument  of  a  harsh  per 
secution,  and,  furthermore,  the  undeniable  fact  that  no  alarm 
ing  French  machinations  were  going  on  in  the  country ;  for  if 
the  homes  and  happiness  of  thousands  of  industrious  exiles 
from  various  lands,  whose  opportunity  had  here  been  ripening 
for  admission  to  full  citizenship,  were  intentionally  put  in 
jeopardy  at  this  juncture  for  the  sake  of  frightening  poor 
Volney,  the  scientific  pedant  (whom  the  easily  scared  had 
magnified  into  a  spy),  and  a  shipload  or  two  of  unknown 
Frenchmen  out  of  the  country,  then  this  legislative  contriv 
ance  was  more  ingenious  than  useful. 

Nor  need  we  deny  that  the  American  press  of  that  day  had 
become  in  a  great  degree  coarse,  virulent,  and  even  indecent 
in  the  conduct  of  party  discussions,  nor  that  public  men  were 
therein  traduced  and  exposed  to  constant  ribaldry,  nor  that 
foreign  renegades  of  dissolute  habits  were  employed  as  writers 
in  some  of  them,  who,  in  rare  instances,  were  possibly  subsi 
dized  from  abroad.  Yet  only  the  bigot  could  charge  that  the 
smirching  of  distinguished  characters  was  monopolized  by 
one  sect  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other.  Those  who  grew  livid 
with  rage  at  Callender's  arraignment  of  a  "  mushroom  six  per 
cent,  aristocracy,"  chuckled  when  Peter  Porcupine  erected 
his  quills  at  McKeau  and  Governor  Mifflin,  or  a  newspaper 
of  the  first  literary  pretensions  published  obscene  verses  upon 
Jefferson.  No  man  had  a  better  claim  to  native  American 
and  patriotic  ancestry  than  the  founder  of  that  Republican 
sheet,  at  this  moment  the  most  hated  and  dreaded  for  its  fear* 
less  censorship.  Here  the  fountain  indeed  partook  of  its 
source,  and  that  simple  warmth  with  which  politicians  at  this 


1798,  A   PAETY   TYRANNY.  403 

day  bandied  the  epithets  of  liar,  blockhead,  and  miscreant,  or 
cudgelled,  or  fought  duels,  or  tore  off  one  another's  emblems, 
was  only  too  readily  infused  into  newspapers  which,  seldom 
false  to  their  professions,  mirrored  not  ill  the  prevalent  vehe 
mence  of  party  passion  in  the  breasts  of  a  people,  honest, 
truly,  but  not  as  yet  educated  to  polish  or  variety  of  expres 
sion.  In  the  cultivation  of  American  manners  the  present 
compost  might  serve  to  top-dress  a  soil  which  would  gradu 
ally  grow  rich  enough  to  dispense  with  it.  The  printer's 
power  of  mischief  ceased,  far  more  readily  than  at  our  later 
period,  with  the  withdrawal  of  subscriptions,  and  since  three- 
fourths  at  least  of  the  American  press  now  heartily  supported 
the  administration  against  France,  a  sedition  law  for  keeping 
the  other  fourth  from  endangering  the  public  peace  could 
hardly  be  thought  essential. 

In  fine,  notwithstanding  long  authority  gave  them  the  ad 
vantage  of  position,  those  who  had  promoted  these  arbitrary 
measures  were  by  no  means  as  clean-handed  and  disinterested 
as  they  professed  to  be.  If  there  existed  a  French  faction  in 
the  country,  there  was  likewise  a  British  one ;  but  while  the  one 
had  manifestly  declined,  the  other  grew  more  hectoring.  Neu 
trality  in  the  European  conflict,  but  self-defence  against  foreign 
spoliation  and  insult,  were  with  the  great  body  of  the  Federal 
ists,  indeed,  and  the  President  at  their  head,  the  grand  objects 
to  secure  in  a  contest  like  that  now  impending,  and  according 
to  their  light  the  people  moved  in  this  direction.  But  a  clique, 
influential  in  procuring  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  projected, 
as  we  shall  see,  a  war  of  conquest  and  British  alliance;  with 
the  new  rage  for  calling  in  the  sovereign  people  and  "  playing 
government,  as  it  were,  in  the  street,"  they  were  out  of  humor ; 
and  to  their  scheme,  now  ripening  fast,  the  continuous  hostil 
ity  of  France  was  like  air  and  sunlight.  Keeping  the  public 
mind  directed  as  much  as  possible  to  the  wrongs  received  from 
the  French  nation  alone,  and  at  the  same  time  muzzling  the 
press,  they  hoped  to  head  the  ship  of  state  by  a  chart  which 
they  studiously  concealed  from  sight  for  the  present. 

After  the  public  communication  of  the  dispatches  Marshall 
had  brought  home  with  him,  Congress  and  the  country  were 
drawn  rapidly  and  resistlessly  into  the  current  of  a  foreign 


404  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

war.  The  party  plan  in  Congress  appears  to  have  been  to  pass 
measure  after  measure  leading  up  to  the  result  of  declaring 
war,  and  so  commit  the  doubtful  members,  without  forcing  the 
direct  issue  of  war.*  Appropriation  was  made  for  distributing 
arms  to  the  States  ;f  our  merchant  vessels  were  permitted  to 
arm  and  repel  French  assaults  by  force  ;J  on  the  ground  that 
France  had  violated  her  treaties  and  refused  amicable  adjust 
ment  the  treaties  were  declared  no  longer  obligatory  on  the 
United  States  ;§  and, .as  a  final  impulse  in  the  war  direction, 
the  President  was  authorized  to  issue  letters  of  marque  and 
reprisal  against  France.||  To  meet  the  extraordinary  expenses 
thus  invited,  which  included  a  vastly  increased  army,  a  navy, 
and  a  new  marine  corps,*j[  a  direct  tax  of  $2,000,000  was  laid,** 
a  valuation  of  lands  and  dwelling-houses  and  an  enumeration  of 
slaves  having  been  first  provided  for  ;ff  but  the  President  was 
allowed  to  borrow,  not  only  $2,000,000  in  anticipation  of  this 
tax,  but  $5,000,000  besides,  at  usurious  rates. JJ  This  session, 
so  barren  in  its  first  months,  and  so  prolific  in  its  last,  closed 
on  the  16th  of  July. 

President  Adams  had  a  navy  and  an  increased  army  to 
officer  and  organize  during  the  recess.  The  Secretaryship  of 
the  Navy  he  offered  to  George  Cabot,  of  Massachusetts ;  but 
the  latter's  natural  indolence  and  dislike  of  responsibility  led 
him  to  decliue,§§  and  Benjamin  Stoddert,  of  Maryland,  a 
Georgetown  merchant,  without  political  antecedents,  was  ap 
pointed  instead,  who  proved  himself  an  efficient  officer  and 
the  most  constant  member  of  Adams's  present  Cabinet,  as  he 

*  Fisher  Ames  had  recommended  such  a  plan,  but  afterwards  regret 
ted  that  Congress  adjourned  without  going  further  towards  waging  war. 
See  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1798. 

f  Act  July  6th,  1798.  J  Act  June  25th,  1798. 

\  Act  July  7th,  1798.  This  important  act  came  from  the  Senate  to  the 
House  with  ah  argumentative  preamble,  which  the  House  curtailed. 
Hamilton  had  in  March  suggested  suspending  the  treaty,  but  Pickering 
was  then  for  annihilating  it.  Tracy,  of  the  Senate,  proposed  this  bill, 
consulting  Hamilton  upon  it.  G  Hamilton's  Works. 

||  Act  July  9th,  1798.  fi  See  Acts  July  10th,  July  llth,  1798. 

**  Act  July  14th,  1798.  ft  Act  July  9th,  1798. 

H  Act  July  16th,  1798.  \l  Cabot's  Life. 


1798.  NEW   NAVY   AND   ARMY.  405 

was  the  first  whom  Adams  chose  for  himself.  Our  little  navy, 
which  the  President  was  proud  of  seeing  created  and  equipped 
under  his  administration,  consisted  originally  of  the  three 
frigates,  Constitution,  United  States,  and  Constellation,  now 
ready  for  sea,  with  such  additional  vessels  as  he  might  .pur 
chase  or  accept  under  the  authority  conferred  by  Congress, 
which  permitted  of  twenty-four  vessels  in  all,  including  three 
new  frigates,  twelve  sloops,  and  six  smaller  vessels.  Officers 
eminent  in  the  merchant  service  had  heen  selected  for  the 
chief  naval  commands:  Stewart,  Hull,  Kodgers,  Bainbridge, 
and  Decatur,  names  since  famous.  The  sloop-of-war  Delaware, 
under  the  elder  Decatur,  put  to  sea  and  brought  in  the  first 
prize  ever  captured  from  the  French  by  this  nation,  a  privateer 
mounting  twenty  guns. 

The  selection  of  new  officers  for  the  regular  army,  which 
under  the  latest  act  might  be  augmented  to  about  13,000  men, 
to  be  commanded  by  two  major-generals,  an  inspector-general 
with  the  rank  of  major-general,  and  four  brigadiers,  taxed  the 
President's  patience  more  severely. 

The  popular  voice  was  for  Washington  to  emerge  from  his 
retirement,  take  command  of  the  American  army,  and  repel 
the  foreign  invader.*     Perceiving  this,  and  having  already 
received  an  intimation  from   Hamilton  of  the  step    M,iy  19 
Congress   contemplated  taking    with    reference   to 
him,  the  ex-President,  in  a  friendly  strain,  invited  his  successor 
to  visit  Washington  city  and  Mount  Vernon.     He    Jimel7 
was  doubtless  aware,  not  only  that  his  own  word  and 
personal  example  were  needful  to  make  America  spring  to  arms, 
but  that  younger  and  fresher  men  ought  nevertheless  to  take 
the  field  ;  and,  moreover,  he  understood  Adams  sufficiently  to 
feel  that  there  was  great  delicacy  on  his  own  part  in  yielding 
to  the  public  solicitation,  and  so  encroaching  upon  a   Presi 
dent  who  held  his  executive  prerogative  so  tenaciously.    Little 
events,  indeed,  such  as  the  latest  celebration  of  Washington's 
birthday  in  Philadelphia,  which  the  old  Cabinet  honored  but 
not  Adams's  intimate  friends,  indicated  that  the  new  Presi- 


*  "Hail  Columbia"  and  "  Adams  and  Liberty"  both  indicated  this 
sentiment. 


406  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

dent  was  sensitive  of  honors  paid  to  the  olfl  incumbent  which 
did  not  revert  to  the  new. 

In  his  response  to  Washington's  invitation,  which  doubtless 
he  could  not  readily  have  accepted,  Adams  dropped 
not  a  deferential  word  or  hint,  but  took  occasion 
rather  to  make  the  unflattering  observation  that  he  should 
have  to  get  a  younger  set  of  generals  in  case  of  a  French  in 
vasion,  but  would  like  Washington's  advice  from  time  to  time 
and  the  use  of  his  name. 

The  army  bill,  as  had  been  anticipated,  established  the 
rank   of  lieutenant-general  and  commander-iu-chief  of  the 
armies;  and  shortly  before  the  session  closed  the 
President  nominated  Washington,  the  person   uni 
versally  designed   for  this  shining  mark  of  honor,  who  was 
unanimously  confirmed  by  the  Senate  without  distinction  of 
party.     The  Secretary  of  War  was  now  dispatched  to  Mount 
Vernon,  bearing  the  commission    of   lieutenant-general  and 
Adams's  personal  letter  apologizing  to  Washington  for  nomi 
nating;  him  without  a  previous    consultation,  but 
July  6.  11.1. 

somewhat  equivocally  adding   his  preference  that 

Washington  had  been  President.*  At  the  same  time  McHenry 
was  directed  to  intimate  to  Washington  that  the  latter's  ad 
vice  in  forming  a  list  of  officers  would  be  extremely  desirable 
to  the  President,  some  names  being  mentioned  which  occurred 
to  himselfl 

Unfortunately  for  Adams,  who,  while  complying  with  the 
public  wish,  had  directed  this  affair  with  much  reservation  of 
his  official  prerogative,  a  cabinet  marplot  was  already  hatch 
ing  for  bringing  Hamilton  into  the  second  place  of  command, 

*  Adams's  haste  in  nominating  was  not,  however,  without  good  ex 
cuse,  considering  the  lateness  of  the  session.  To  both  the  President  and 
Secretary  of  War,  Washington  had  written,  July  4th,  anticipating  a 
nomination,  and  intimating  readiness  in  case  of  actual  invasion  to  heed 
his  country's  call ;  but  the  letter  had  not  yet  been  received.  Adams,  as 
his  instructions  to  McHenry  showed,  though  requiring  delicacy  to  be 
observed  "  consistent  with  all  the  respect  that  is  due  from  me  to  him," 
exposed  no  strong  desire  for  urging  an  acceptance  upon  Washington. 
"If  the  General  should  decline  the  appointment/'  he  says,  "all  the 
world  will  be  silent  and  respectfully  assent.  If  he  should  accept  it,  all 
the  world;  except  the  enemies  of  this  country,  will  rejoice." 


1798.  WASHINGTON   COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.  407 

and  thwarting  the  President's  natural  desire  to  control  the 
subordinate  appointments,  as  the  Constitution  gave  him  the 
right  to  do.  This  purpose  was  to  be  accomplished  by  operat 
ing  directly  upon  Washington,  without  the  President's  per 
sonal  knowledge,  The  Cabinet  conclave  appears  to  have  con 
sidered,  in  fact,  that  with  the  aged  Washington  for  the  actual 
and  Hamilton  for  the  acting  commander-in-chief,  military 
operations  would  speedily  fall  under  the  direction  of  the  latter. 
Hamilton,  though  he  had  lately  declined  the  appointment  to 
a  vacancy  in  the  Senate,  which  Governor  Jay  offered  him 
during  the  recess  of  the  New  York  legislature,  betrayed  no 
little  anxiety  for  the  new  military  distinction  of  second  in 
command.  Jay  wrote  to  Washington  to  recommend  Hamil 
ton's  claims  for  such  consideration,  while  Pickering,  whose 
opinion  as  a  high  revolutionary  officer  was  likely  to  carry 
great  weight  with  the  late  President  irrespective  of  his  civil 
prominence,  took  ad  vantage  of  a  slight  delay  over  McHenry's 
departure  to  mail  a  letter  to  Mount  Vernon,  press 
ing  Washington  to  select  Hamilton  for  the  second 
in  command,  and  to  intimate  further  this  opinion  to  the  Presi 
dent  in  a  way  to  compel  the  appointment.  Hamilton,  who 
was  now  in  Philadelphia  and  had  long  before  acquainted 
Washington  with  his  wish  to  be  inspector-general, 
most  audaciously  undertook  to  modify  McHenry's 
instructions  by  making  him  the  bearer  of  a  personal  missive 
to  Washington,  so  expressed  that  the  Secretary  of  War,  like 
wise  fortified  by  his  colleagues  in  views  to  which 
he  himself  had  strongly  inclined,  bore  to  Mount 
Vernon,  although  nominally  the  President's  executive  mes 
senger  sent  under  special  instructions,  a  letter  which  not  only 
entreated  Washington,  in  terms  which  Adams  would  hardly 
have  sanctioned,  to  accept  his  commission,  but  informed  him, 
in  addition,  that  the  President  had  no  relative  ideas,  and  that 
his  military  prepossessions  were  of  the  wrong  sort.  A  strange 
message  surely  to  go  by  the  President's  dispatch-bearer. 

Washington's  decision,  made  upon  a  clear  perception  of 
these  counter-currents  in  the  administration,  was  to  accept  hivS 
appointment  of  Commander-in-chief  under  two  conditions : 
(1)  That  the  principal  line  and  staff  officers  should  be  such 


408  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

as  he  confided  in ;  (2)  that  he  should  not  be  called  into  the 
field  until  a  strong  emergency  arose.*  The  latter  condition 
was  embodied  in  his  formal  letter  of  acceptance,  which,  hav 
ing  been  prepared  for  publication,  expressed  his  fullest  appro 
bation  of  "  the  wise  and  prudent  measures  "  of  the  present 
administration,  and  sought  to  inspire  universal  confidence  in 
its  acts  ;  but  the  former  he  confined  to  the  Secretary  of  War, 
as  the  President's  agent,  and  to  those  in  his  own  express  con 
fidence. 

Washington's  letter  of  acceptance  Adams  laid  promptly 
before  the  Senate,  which  had  by  this  time  reassembled  for  ex 
ecutive  purposes  immediately  after  the  adjournment 
of  Congress ;  and  also  a  list,  as  arranged  by  Wash 
ington,  which  named  Hamilton  for  inspector-general  (a  post 
whose  rank  under  the  Army  Act  was  major-general),  and 
Charles  C.  Piuckney  and  Knox  for  major-generals,  nomina 
tions  which  were  promptly  confirmed.  Among  the  brigadiers 
appointed  were  William  North,  lately  a  Senator  from  New 
York,  designated  adjutant-general;  Dayton,  the  Speaker  of 
the  House,  and  the  President's  son-in-law,  William  S.  Smith  ; 
but  to  Adams's  mortification  the  last  named,  who  was  at  pres 
ent  a  bankrupt  under  apparently  discreditable  circumstances, 
was  rejected,  not  without  conveying  a  reproof  of  official  nep- 
otism.f 

The  extra  session  ended,  the  President  hastened  at  once  to 
AU  ust      QuiQCV'  leavmg  his  subordinates  to  plan  and  organ 
ize  as  they  might  through  the  recess  while  their 
executive  head   was  hundreds  of  miles  distant  enjoying  the 
quiet  of  his  home.     He  made  no  effort  to  first  systematize 
and  compose,  as  was  proper,  the  immense  business  which  the 
legislation  of  the  late  session  had  throw.u  upon  the  depart- 

*  An  ambiguity  in  McHenry's  letter  of  July  12th  to  the  President 
from  Mount  Vernon  may  have  led  Adams  to  suppose,  however,  that 
this  first  condition  made  reservation  only  as  to  staff'  officers.  But  that 
Washington  did  not  so  intend  appears  from  his  letter  of  July  14th  to 
Hamilton,  as  above.  The  haste  made  was  such  that  no  formal  under 
standing  was  had  on  this  delicate  point. 

f  Pickering  freely  admitted  that  upon  the  two  grounds  of  bankruptcy 
and  nepotism  he  had  been  active  in  procuring  this  rejection. 


1798.  RANK  AMONG  MAJOR-G1 

ments,  that  particularly  of  War,  whoseN&^9>MciJenry,  Wae  J 
quite  unequal  to  his  new  and  arduous 
ceiving  on  his  way  home  more  than  the 
while  the  impulse  of  loyal  enthusiasm  was  so  buoyant,  and  at 
Milton  welcomed  with  a  floral  tribute  like  that  bestowed  upon 
Washington  on  the  Assuiipink  bridge,  he  reached  his  farm  to 
find  that  a  serious  misunderstanding  had  already  arisen  con 
cerning  the  relative  rank  of  his  three  major-generals. 

Hamilton's  friends  claimed  that  he  was  second  in  command, 
wrhile  New  England  papers,  which  recorded  the  President's 
northward  progress,  as  positively  asserted  that  Knox,  because 
of  Revolutionary  priority,  outranked  both  Hamilton  and 
Pinckney.  It  would  seem  that  Washington  had  not  meant  to 
settle  the  delicate  point  of  precedence  by  the  arrangement  of 
names  sent  to  the  President,  though  he  evidently  inclined  to 
disregard  the  old  Revolutionary  priority  of  rank,  so  far  as  his 
choice  went,  and  esteemed  Hamilton  as  the  most  capable  offi 
cer  of  the  three.*  Knox  presently  accosted  Adams  on  this 
subject,  claiming,  together  with  friends  of  his  in  Massachu 
setts,  who  now  had  the  President's  ear,  that  his  military  rank 
in  the  war  entitled  him  to  be  commissioned  second  in  com 
mand.  To  this  view  Adams,  as  a  fellow-citizen  of  Massachu 
setts  and  a  New  Englander,  who  had  long  respected  Knox 
and  more  strongly  still  disliked  the  idea  of  Hamilton's  pre 
cedence,  would  have  acceded,  thinking  quite  naturally  that 
the  arrangement  rested  with  his  own  constitutional  discretion, 
and  disinclined  to  defer  more  to  Washington  than  duty  re 
quired.  But  the  President's  Cabinet,  together  with  Hamilton, 
had  meanwhile  been  working  with  utter  disregard  of  the  Pres-. 
ident  himself  to  induce  Washington  to  settle  or  dictate  the 
rank  as  they  desired  ;  and  McIIenry  submitted  to  the  Presi 
dent  letters,  drafted  by  Hamilton  himself,  which  were  designed 
to  reconcile  Knox  to  a  subordinate  place,  and  officially  an 
nounce  that  the  order  was  to  be  Hamilton,  Pinckney,  and 
Knox ;  for  it  was  desirable  to  call  one  or  more  of  the  major- 
generals  into  immediate  service.  These,  letters  angered  Adams, 


*  Washington's  Writings,  July,  1798. 
VOL.  i. — 35 


410  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

who,  with  some  inkling  of  the  intrigue  by  which  Hamilton 
had  been  put  forward  as  the  essential  hero  of  the 
hour,  ordered  instead  that  the  commissions  be  made 
out  on  successive  days  and  in  the  reverse  order.*  This  dis 
posal  of  the  issue  caused  great  consternation  in  the  Cabinet 
coterie.  Hamilton  declared  to  his  friends  that  he  would  not 
accept  his  commission  upon  any  such  arrangement.  Picker 
ing,  in  order  to  force  the  President,  if  possible,  to  reverse  his 
decision,  drafted  a  letter,  peremptory  in  tone,  to  be  signed  by 
all  the  Cabinet.  But  Wolcott,  who  was  a  much  better  diplo 
matist  than  bfc  colleague  in  charge  of  the  diplomatic  busi 
ness,  suppressed  the  draft,  and,  persuading  Hamilton  to  keep 
out  of  sight,  sent  his  own  private  letter  to  the  President,  in 
which  he  disentangled  the  badly  managed  affair  with  no  little 
tact  and  delicacy.  To  his  representations  Adams  appears  at 
length  to  have  yielded  ;  and  by  the  time  av  letter  arrived  from 
Washington  himself,  which  warmly  defended  'Hamilton 
against  all  possible  aspersions  upon  his  military  or  personal 
character,  and  pointedly  intimated  to  the  President  that  he 
should  regard  any  regulation  of  military  rank  which  post 
poned  Hamilton  to  Kuox  as  a  breach  of  the  conditions  upon 
which  he  had  accepted  the  chief  command,  the  President 
was  able  to  reply  from  Quincy,  with  as  much  grace  as  possi 
ble,  that  he  had  already  dated  the  three  commissions  on  the 
same  day,  and  would  confirm  whatever  the  commander-in- 
chief  might  decide  in  the  premises.  Washington 

October.  TT        •  i  i 

promptly  gave  Hamilton  the  precedence;  iiiick- 
ney,  who  would  likewise  have  outranked  him  under  the  Con 
tinental  rule,  but  was  now  placed  second,  cheerfully  acquiesc 
ing.  Kuox's  soldierly  sense,  however,  would  not  permit  of 


*  In  his  first  letter  to  McIIenry  Adams  said :  "  There  has  been,  too 
much  intrigue  in  this  business  with  General  Washington  and  me."  In 
the  second  he  explained  that  his  suspicion  was  that  extraordinary  pains 
were  taken  with  McIIenry  to  impress  upon  his  mind  that  public  opin 
ion  and  the  unanimous  wish  of  the  Federalists  was  that  General  Ham 
ilton  might  be  first  and  even  commander-in-chief,  and  that  McIIenry 
might  express  this  opinion  to  General  Washington  more  forcibly  than 
he  himself  should  have  done.  He  adds  that  he  thinks  public  opinion 
never  expected  nor  desired  any  such  thing. 


1798.  THE   MIRANDA   ENTERPRISE.  411 

the  double  degradation,  so  he  declined  his  appointment  as  the 
third  major-general.* 

That  this  Cabinet  anxiety  to  establish  the  seniority  of  one 
whose  station  was  quite  securely  fixed  for  the  present  as  in 
spector-general  had  stronger  ingredients  than  the  desire  to 
gratify  a  military  punctilio  while  leaving  to  Washington  the 
chief  command,  may  be  conclusively  inferred  from  correspond 
ence  brought  later  to  light,  of  which  the  commauder-in-chief 
remained  totally  ignorant.  By  a  treaty  of  1796,  as  it  appears, 
France  and  Spain  had  lately  guaranteed  each  other's  domin 
ions  in  the  Old  and  New  World ;  and  as  Blouut's  letter  dis 
closed  a  plot  on  the  part  of  private  citizens  of  the  United 
States  for  invading  Louisiana  under  the  protection  of  Great 
Britain,  so  were  similar  designs  of  a  more  official  character 
cherished  by  a  knot  of  Federalists,  with  the  Secretary  of  State 
at  the  head ;  King,  our  ambassador  at  London,  feeling  the  way 
for  such  an  arrangement  with  the  English  ministry. 

Pickering  had  purposely  conducted  his  Spanish  correspond 
ence  as  though  to  force  a  quarrel,  and  that  with  Britain  so  as 
to  promote  a  joint  alliance.  As  part  of  the  general  scheme, 
an  expedition  was  to  be  undertaken  against  the  Spanish  Amer 
ican  colonies  under  the  joint  protection  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States,  with  the  intention  of  enabling  those  colo 
nies  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  Spain.  Pitt  had  favored  some 
such  project  during  the  British  controversy  with  Spain  in 


*  See  8  John  Adams's  Works,  and  the  Life  of  John  Adams,  in  which 
his  grandson,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  carefully  analyzes  the  whole  cor 
respondence  over  these  military  appointments;  Cabot's  Life;  Picker 
ing's  Life ;  5  Irving's  Washington  ;  Gibbs's  History.  Knox,  who  was 
already  embarrassed  in  land  speculations,  failed  soon  after.  Cabot's 
Life  shows  that,  at  Pickering's  instance,  Cabot,  in  conference  with  others, 
brought  further  influence  to  bear  upon  the  President  in  Hamilton's 
favor  about  the  time  he  received  Wolcott's  letter.  How  low  Hamilton 
stood  in  Adams's  own  estimation  for  the  next  in  command  to  Wash 
ington,  is  shown  by  the  draft  of  a  letter  which  Adams  prepared  Sep 
tember  17th  to  send  to  Wolcott  but  concluded  to  withhold.  8  John 
Adams's  Works.  Hamilton,  he  said,  was  a  foreigner,  a  person  of  com 
paratively  low  rank  in  the  late  army,  with  no  popularity  anywhere  in 
America,  and  of  merits  which  men  estimated  quite  as  diversely  as  those 
of  Calvin. 


412  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

1790,  which  nearly  led  to  war  but  was  finally  composed  ;  and 
Spain's  present  alliance  with  France  now  revived  its  con 
sideration.  One  Miranda,  who  secretly  worked  upon  the 
British  ministry  to  such  an  end,  was  expecting  to  make  use  of 
disaffection  in  the  Spanish  colonies  to  promote  the  objects  of 
a  joint  expedition,  besides  his  private  ambition.  Great  Britain 
would  have  furnished  the  navy  for  the  present  occasion,  and 
the  United  States  the  army ;  and  in  case  of  success  the  prom 
ised  reward  of  Great  Britain  was  to  obtain  the  West  Indies 
as  a  South  American  market  for  her  manufactures,  together 
with  rights  across  the  Isthmus,  while  the  United  States  were 
to  have  the  Floridas  and  all  of  Spanish  Louisiana  east  of  the 
Mississippi. 

How  many  of  the  Federalist  leaders  were  in  the  confidence 
of  this  vast  international  project,  which  seems  to  have  been 
contrived  while  the  public  mind  was  becoming  prejudiced  by 
the  rumors  of  new  Spanish  intrigues  for  our  Western  dismem 
berment,  is  not  certainly  known.  Harper,  the  administration 
leader  in  the  House  since  Smith's  departure,  had,  both  to  Con 
gress  and  his  constituents,  broached,  in  1797,  the  idea  that  a 
conquest  of  the  two  Mexicos  ought  to  tempt  America  to  league 
with  England  against  France  ;  but  Harper  was  considered  an 
unstable  politician  by  his  own  party,  and  a  person  too.  liable 
to  disclose  whatever  he  knew  to  deserve  close  confidence.  Pick 
ering  and  King,  however,  were  certainly  in  secret  conference 
on  the  Miranda  scheme  before  Piuckuey  and  Marshall  had  left 
France;  while  Great  Britain,  feeling  her  isolation,  and  alarmed 
at  the  prospect  of  a  French  invasion,  had  deposited  powers  with 
her  minister  in  America  for  inducing  a  common  cause  against 
her  enemies.  Scarcely  were  the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches  publicly 
disclosed  before  Pickering  sounded  Hamilton  upon  the  feasi 
bility  of  capturing  Louisiana ;  and  King's  letters  lifting  the 
curtain  still  higher  soon  after  Talleyrand's  dismissal  of  the 
two  American  envoys  the  Directory  did  not  desire  to  treat  with, 
Hamilton  found  himself  secretly  initiated  into  a  confidential 
scheme  which,  whether  pursued  by  the  United  States  indepen 
dently  or  under  British  auspices,  might  well  have  dazzled  his 
mind  with  the  idea  of  becoming  the  liberator  of  Southern 
America,  perhaps  a  Caesar  Augustus  in  the  New  World. 


1798.  THE   MIRANDA   ENTERPRISE.  413 

Having  received  between  April  and  August  several  letters 
from  Miranda  himself,  whose  contents  he  studiously  concealed 

from  Washington,  Hamilton  transmitted  an  answer 

f  •   -  f       1  T      j  IT          A 

tor  our  minister  at  .London  to  suppress  or  deliver  at 

his  own  discretion.     This  answer  favored  the  Spanish-Amer 
ican  invasion,  provided  the  United  States  should  have  the 
principal  agency  and  furnish  the  whole  land  force,  in  which 
case,  he  observed,  the  command  would  naturally  fall   upon 
himself;  and  sensible  as  he  was  that  opinion  in  this  country  was 
not  ripe  for  such  a  scheme,  he  added  his  belief  that  it  would 
ripen  fast.     King  delivered  this  letter  to  Miranda  in 
fulfilment  of  his  trust,  and  in  October  he  mysteri 
ously  responded  that  all  was  ready  in  England  to 

u  i        TIT-      October  19. 

co-operate  whenever  America  was  prepared.     Mi 
randa  wrote  likewise  to  Hamilton,  saying:  "All  is  ready  for 
your  President  to  give  the  word."* 

The  Miranda  enterprise  must  have  proved  impracticable, 
sooner  or  later,  without  the  President's  sanction  :  but  Pickering 
and   Hamilton    appear   to  have  contrived  that  Adams,  like 
Washington,  should  be  drawn  gently  into  it,  feeling,  no  doubt, 
that  here  was  one  of  their  worst  embarrassments. 
Miranda   had,  in  fact,  communicated  with    the 
President  frankly  on  the  general  subject.     But  Adams  gave 
little  heed  to  the  scheme,  and  less  favor ;  for,  like  Washington, 
he  was  partial  neither  to  forcible  conquests  nor  a  foreign  al 
liance. 

It  was,  we  may  presume,  without  knowing  how  far  Hamilton 
was  in  these  toils,  since  that  side  of  the  intrigue  had  not  been 
disclosed  to  him,  that  Adams's  war  fever  rapidly  cooled  down 
from  the  moment  he  had  felt  obliged  to  abdicate  his  executive 

*  7  John  C.  Hamilton's  Republic;  5,  6  Hamilton's  Works,  1798  ;  John 
Adams's  Life,  and  8  John  Adams's  Works.  See  also  an  interesting  article 
in  13  Edinburgh  Review,  277-311,  to  which  Adams's  grandson  refers, 
and  which  contains  Miranda's  October  letter  to  Hamilton,  and  gives  a 
sketch  of  the  Miranda  scheme  as  compiled  from  British  documents. 
Miranda  had  written  Hamilton  an  unimportant  letter  April  5th,  1791, 
about  the  time  the  former  invasion  was  contemplated  by  Great  Britain, 
but  there  is  no  appearance  of  any  closer  acquaintance  between  them  at 
that  time.  Hamilton's  Works,  1791. 


414  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

functions  in  military  appointments  to  Washington  and  Hamil 
ton.  We  now  see  him  leaving  the  cornmander-m-chief,  the 
major-generals,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  to  meet  and  discuss 
their  military  plans  without  his  advice,  and  to  fill  out  blank 
army  commissions  at  pleasure  over  his  name ;  refusing  to  go  to 
Philadelphia  to  aid  in  organizing  the  forces,*  and  grumbling 
that  men  of  sense  should  enlist  in  the  army  at  all  when  the 
naval  inducements  were  so  much  better.  The  President,  in 
truth,  took  now  no  interest  in  the  warlike  preparations  beyond 
those  of  the  naval  vessels  in  Stoddert's  department.  "One 
thino-  I  know,"  he  wrote  to  McHenry,  "  that  re^i- 

October  22.  '  J ' 

meuts  are  costly  articles  everywhere,  and  more  so  in 
this  country  than  any  other  under  the  sun.  If  this  nation  sees 
a  great  army  to  maintain  without  an  enemy  to  light,  there 
may  arise  an  enthusiasm  that  seems  to  be  little  foreseen.  At 
present  there  is  no  more  prospect  of  seeing  a  French  army 
here  than  there  is  in  Heaven. "f 

There  was,  indeed,  great  sagacity  shown  in  these  last  words, 
however  satirically  expressed.  Jay  had  opened  a 
special  session  of  the  legislature  of  his  State  in  a 
spirited  manner,  inducing  an  appropriation  for  the  defence  of 
New  York  harbor  on  account  of  the  balance  that  State  owed 
the  United  States.  But  there  was  yet  no  sign  of  an  invasion, 
and,  the  pressure  of  heroic  occasion  ceasing,  the  mercury  began 
to  fall.  The  Federalists,  as  a  party,  wished  to  prolong  the 
present  war  excitement  in  order  to  carry,  at  all  events,  the  fall 
elections  for  a  new  Congress.  As  for  the  Spanish -American 
conquest,  King  had  rightly  given  warning  that  if  we  were 
betrayed  by  France, — or,  in  other  words,  should  France  de 
cline  a  fight, — the  glorious  opportunity  would  be  lost. 

But  that  France  would  not  fight  America  unless  compelled 
to  was  becoming  more  and  more  evident.  The  French  in 
vasion  of  England  had  been  abandoned,  and  Napoleon's  opera 
tions  were  transferred  to  the  Nile.  Gerry,  who  returned  to 
America  in  the  early  fall,  had  been  told  by  Talleyrand  that 

*  The  health  of  his  wife,  who  was  at  this  time  lying  seriously  ill,  was 
the  cause  assigned  for  this  refusal,  but  probably  not  the  sole  one  that 
operated.  Adams  to  McHenry,  October  22d,  1798. 

f  Ibid. 


1798.  LOGAN   AND   GERRY.  415 

the  Directory  had  no  thoughts  of  war,  and  that  France  only 
wished  to  be  put  on  as  favorable  a  footing  with  the  United 
States  as  Great  Britain.  A  benevolent  Quaker,  Dr.  Logan, 
who  had  sailed  for  Europe  in  the  summer  as  a  self-appointed 
ambassador  of  peace,  bearing  letters  from  Jefferson  November 
and  McKean  to  influential  characters  abroad,  like 
wise  brought  back  the  report,  on  his  later  arrival,  that  Merlin, 
the  new  president  of  the  Directory,  expressed  the  warmest 
friendship  for  the  United  States.  About  the  same  time  Hamil 
ton  must  have  received  a  letter  from  King  which  said  to  him: 
"You  will  have  no  war;  France  will  propose  to  renew  nego 
tiations."* 

Gerry,  on  his  arrival  home,  was  received  by  his  fellow-citi 
zens  and  neighbors  with  a  bitterness  of  animosity  which  the 
war  section  of  the  Massachusetts  Federalists,  who  had  long 
borne  him  a  grudge,  did  their  best  to  fan  into  angry  demon 
stration.  During  his  long  detention  abroad  his  family  had 
in  their  home  been  wantonly  insulted  ;f  and  a  newspaper 
volley  poured  upon  him  as  soon  as  he  returned,  which  the 
President  advised  him  to  bear  in  silence.  While  Adams 
treated  kindly  his  mortified  friend,  who  had  at  once  reported 
himself  at  Quincy,  the  Secretary  of  State  held  Gerry  up  to 
public  execration  as  a  man  of  duplicity  and  treachery,  as  well 
as  pusillanimous  in  his  conduct  abroad,  who  deserved  to  be 
impeached.  Except  for  the  President's  intervention,  Picker 
ing  would  even  have  deprived  Gerry  of  his  pay  for  remaining 
later  than  his  colleagues.  Upright  and  serviceable  as  he 
meant  to  be,  Gerry  had,  indeed,  cut  a  sorry  figure  in  sepa 
rating  from  Piuckney  and  Marshall.  Talleyrand  afterwards 
complained  that  he  was  too  irresolute,  and  that  the  later 
correspondence  between  them  was  a  curious  monument  of 
advances  on  his  part  and  evasions  on  Gerry's.  Our  envoy's 

*  King  to  Hamilton,  September  23d,  1798  ;  Hamilton's  Works. 

f  Gerry's  Life  says  that,  "  letters  anonymous  or  feigned  were  sent 
to  Mrs.  Gerry,  imputing  his  continuance  in  France  to  causes  most  dis 
tressing  to  a  wife  and  mother.  Yells  were  uttered  and  bonfires  were 
kindled  at  night  about  the  house,  and  on  one  occasion  a  guillotine  was 
erected  under  the  windows,  smeared  with  blood  and  bearing  the  effigy 
of  a  headless  man." 


416  HISTORY    OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

irresolution  and  evasiveness  must  be  ascribed,  however,  less 
to  his  natural  perversity,  or  indecision  of  character,  than  to  a 
deepening  sense  in  his  mind  of  the  false  position  he  occupied  in 
remaining  alone ;  which  sense  ripened  into  convic 
tion  when  the  March  instructions  from  the  State 
Department  arrived ;  though  now  he  found  it  impossible  to 
secure  his  papers  and  hurry  on  board  the  dispatch  vessel  be 
fore  American  newspapers  with  the  X,  Y,  Z  documents  printed 
in  full  reached  Paris.  Justly  alarmed  for  his  personal  safety 
upon  this  publication,  Gerry  had,  nevertheless,  to  stay  and  con 
front  as  he  might  the  real  or  assumed  astonishment  and  wrath  of 
Talleyrand.  While  the  Parisians  laughed  in  their  sleeves,  know 
ing  well  enough  the  propensities  of  the  Directory  and  the  wily 
minister  of  foreign  affairs,  the  latter,  disavowing,  as  of  course, 
all  personal  knowledge  whatever  on  his  part  of  any  such  corrupt 
approaches  as  the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches  indicated,  demanded  the 
names  of  these  unofficial  agents.  Gerry  disclosed  them,  impart 
ing  the  names,  however,  in  confidence.  Talleyrand  did  not  stop 
here,  however,  but  required  Gerry  to  furnish  besides,  as  he 
could  truthfully  do,  a  statement  at  length  to  the  effect  that  no 
douceur  proposals  had  proceeded  from  Talleyrand 

June-July.    .  ,          ,  .     J  „ 

m  person  nor  from  persons  employed  at  his  office; 
and  this  Talleyrand  published,  using  these  admissions  of  fact 
as  though  to  contradict  the  envoy's  opinion.  The  more  Gerry 
now  tried  to  get  away,  the  closer  the  French  minister, 
spider-like,  sought  to  draw  him  into  his  web;  until  upon  the 
latter's  peevish  lamentation  that  the  joint  envoys  should  have 
brought  the  negotiations  to  so  fruitless  a  result,  Gerry,  with 
the  courage  of  desperation,  charged  all  the  blame  upon  Talley 
rand  and  the  French  government  for  attempting  to  procure 
inadmissible  loans.  If  France,  he  said,  wishes  sincerely  for 
peace,  she  can  best  show  it  by  restraining  her  outrageous  depre 
dations  on  American  commerce.  By  this  effort  Gerry  man 
fully  cleared  himself  of  the  web,  and  procured  the  desired 
passports ;  he  received,  also,  at  Havre  before  embarking  a 
decree  of  the  Directory,  which  restrained  French  privateers 
from  committing  unauthorized  depredations;  a 
proof,  to  reassure  his  government  at  length,  both 


1798.  LOGAX   AND  flPERRY.  417 

that  France  was  friendly  and  that  he  had  not  tarried  without 
good  excuse,  nor  wholly  for  Talleyrand's  amusement. 

No  sooner  had  Gerry  been  suffered  to  depart  from  France, 
on  his  earnest  request,  than  the  Directory  issued 

,J      .     .  Aug.  11-22. 

new  decrees  favorable  to  American  neutral  rights, 
releasing  American  citizens  who  had  been  imprisoned  under 
the  embargo  recently  placed  upon  American  vessels,  besides 
raising  that  embargo.  The  American  consul-general  at  Paris, 
Skipwith,  received  friendly  assurances  of  an  intention,  on  the 
part  of  the  French  Directory,  to  revise  their  maritime  code 
in  favor  of  neutral  nations. 

Dr.  Logan,  too,  whose  arrival  at  Paris  soon  after  Gerry's 
departure  was  chronicled  as  that  of  an  envoy  from  the  States 
favorable  to  the  French  interest,  was  handsomely  entertained 
at  Paris  by  both  Merlin  and  Talleyrand.  But  Logan's  sud 
den  and  secret  departure  from  America  on  an  errand  sincerely 
intended  doubtless,  as  indeed  it  turned  out  to  be,  for  the 
genuine  benefit  of  his  country,  had  created  a  panic  in  Phila 
delphia.  Denounced  in  his  absence  as  the  ambassador  of  an 
American  democratic  set  who  were  in  traitorous  correspoud- 
ence  with  the  French  Jacobins,  Logan  carne  home  to  Phila 
delphia  to  find,  instead  of  welcome,  the  State  De- 

,  ,  .  ,  -,TT     -.  .  November. 

partment  shut  against  him,  and  even  Washington, 
to  whom,  being  in  town,  he  proceeded  with  his  pacifying  tale, 
icily  incredulous.*  But  upon  the  President,  who  soon  after 
arrived  at  Philadelphia,  Logan  made  a  stronger  and  more 
favorable  impression,  though  berated  quite  generally  still  as 
an  officious  intermeddler,  and  to  some,  high  in  the  adminis 
tration,  all  the  more  obnoxious  for  bringing  back  with  him 
the  olive  branch. 

Adams's  mind,  in  fact,  had  already  been  impelled  in  the 
direction  of  a  fresh  negotiation  with  France  by  reason  of  in 
formation  which  reached  him  ere  this  from  more  authentic 

sources.     Two  lettters  in  cipher  from  Murray,  the 

Vr  i   •      July  *> 17- 

American   minister  at   the   JNetherlands,  dated  m 


*  See  Washington's  Writings  for  a,  complete  memorandum  of  this 
interview. 


418  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

July,  arrived  at  Quincy  early  in  October.      Upon  being  de 
ciphered  at  the  Sta"te  Department  and  returned  to 

October  9.      ,       _.        .  ,  ,  *  , 

the  President,  they  were  round  to  reveal  the  start 
ling  intelligence  that,  long  prior  to  Gerry's  departure,  Talley 
rand,  seriously  dismayed  at  this  passionate  uprising 

October  18.  •{  J  *  ° 

oi  an  offended  people,  an  event  upon  which,  with  his 
contempt  for  America,  he  had  by  no  means  calculated,  through 
Pichon,  Secretary  of  Legation  at  the  Hague,  made,  in  sub 
dued  tone,  decided  overtures  to  Murray  towards  re-establish 
ing  diplomatic  relations  with  the  great  republic  the  latter 

represented.     So  powerfully  was  Adams  moved  by 

October  20.       *  *  „       J  £ 

this  news  that,  with  reference  to  the  near  approach 
of  Congress,  he  wrote  Pickering,  who  was  in  his  confidence 
upon  this  correspondence,  to  get  advice  from  the  heads  of  the 
different  departments  as  to  (1st),  whether  the  President  ought 
to  recommend  a  declaration  of  war  against  France  if  France 
did  not  declare  it ;  or  (2d),  whether  further  proposals  for  ne 
gotiations  ought  to  be  entertained  in  any  event.  He  recalled 
in  this  connection  the  verbal  reservations  of  his  June  message 
to  Congress,  mentioned  names  worthy  of  consideration  for  a  new 
embassy,  and  suggested  how  his  message  at  the  opening  of  Con 
gress  might  keep  the  channel  of  negotiation  open  without  in 
reality  receding  from  the  firm  position  he  had  already  taken.* 
No  reply  was  made  to  this  important  communication  from 
the  President.  But  Pickering  summoned  a  conclave,  which 
consisted  of  the  Cabinet  officers  and  one  or  more  of  the  military 
generals,  Hamilton,  at  all  events,  being  present ;  and  these 
undertook  to  coerce  the  President  into  a  war  attitude  in  his 
opening  message,  which  would  have  left  no  chance  for  a  peace 
ful  retreat.  A  draft  which  Wolcott  prepared  with  Hamilton's 
aid,  as  expressing  the  Cabinet  opinion  on  the  French  portion 
of  the  message,  set  forth  that  to  send  another  minister  to 
France  would  be  an  act  of  humiliation,  not  to  be  sub-nitted 
to,  except  under  some  extreme  necessity,  such  as  did  not  now 
exist.f  The  President,  who  reached  Philadelphia  shortly  be- 

*  See  8  John  Adams's  Works,  and  appendix. 

f  8  John  Adams's  Works;  2  Gibbs's  Federal  Administrations.     As 
Pickering  was  directed  to  keep  the  knowledge  of  the  Murray  letters  to 


1798.  PRESIDENT'S  OPENING  MESSAGE.  419 

fore  the  opening  of  Congress,  combined  this  draft  with  his 
own  in  such  a  manner  that  his  message  in  reality  faced  two 
ways,  and  might  be  thought  by  some  to  give  to  France  her 
final  option  between  peace  and  war.  The  general 

-•    .  J-/GC.   o— o. 

impression  conveyed  to  those  who  heard  or  read  it 

was  otherwise  ;  not  the  ray  of  new  overtures  or  a  new  French 

mission   was  discernible    by  Eepublicans;    and,  pronounced 

by  the  President  from  the  Speaker's  chair  as  it  was,  with  the 

new  generals,  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Pinckney  all  ranged 

near  him,  a  spectacle  decidedly  warlike  was  afforded  to  the 

country. 

News  which  had  just  come,  announcing  the  failure  of  the 
Irish  insurrection  against  Great  Britain,  Nelson's  victory  at 
the  Nile,  and  Turkey's  new  declaration  of  war  against  France, 
emboldened  some  of  the  Federal  supporters  to  call  for  a  more 
direct  war  policy  against  France.  The  commerce  of  the  United 
States  had,  however,  adapted  itself  to  the  present  situation, 
and  "skulking  half-measures,"  which  left  the  onus  of  the  war 
to  our  opponents,  fairly  accorded  with  the  general  voice  of  the 
country.  Accordingly  the  President's  tone  of  reluctant  hos 
tility  was  commonly  approved,  especially  as  this  permitted  the 
war  preparations  to  go  on.* 

himself,  this  action  of  his  colleagues  and  Hamilton  may  have  been  with 
out  any  special  information  on  their  part  that  the  state  of  affairs  had 
really  altered.  But  Hamilton,  who  was  present  and  influenced  this 
procedure,  had  most  likely  received  that  letter  from  King,  which  in 
formed  him  that  there  would  be  no  war,  and  that  France  would  propose 
to  renew  negotiations ;  nor  would  it  be  strange  if  that  impression  was 
shared  by  the  others  present. 

*  This  message  attributed  the  delay  in  organizing  the  army  to  a  desire 
for  the  fullest  information  in  selecting  officers.  Concerning  French  af 
fairs,  the  President  observed  that  the  information  received  during  the 
recess  confirmed  the  failure  of  all  attempts  at  amicable  arrangement; 
that  the  French  government  appeared  solicitous  to  avoid  a  rupture,  and 
even  willing  to  receive  a  minister  from  the  United  States,  but  that  this 
willingness  was  expressed  in  terms  inadmissible.  Hitherto,  then,  noth 
ing  had  been  discoverable  from  France's  conduct  which  ought  to  change 
or  relax  our  measures  of  defence.  "  But  in  demonstrating  by  our  con 
duct  that  we  do  not  fear  war,  in  the  necessary  protection  of  our  rights 
and- honor,  we  shall  give  no  room  to  infer  that  we  abandon  the  desire  of 
peace.  An  efficient  preparation  for  war  can  alone  secure  peace.  It  is 


420  HISTOEY   OF  THE  UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Petitions  to  Congress  against  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws 
were  very  numerous  from  the  Middle  and  Southern  States  at 
this  session,  and  the  remonstrances  which  the  Executive  had 
already  received  during  the  intermission,  showed  how  strongly 
the  common  sense  of  the  nation  rebelled  against  that  proscrip- 
tive  legislation  for  which  vindictive  party  leaders  were  chiefly 
responsible.  As  for  the  Alien  Act  the  President  showed  little 
disposition  to  execute  the  hateful  trust  confided  to 

October.         .  .. 

him  ;  and  when  Pickering  pressed  the  business  with 
his  customary  energy,  and  requested  the  President  to  authorize 
heads  of  departments  to  decide  in  his  absence  from  the  capital 
what  aliens  ought  to  be  dispatched  out  of  the  country,  he 
properly  refused  to  delegate  an  executive  authority  which 
under  such  an  act  ought,  he  thought,  to  be  strictly  construed. 
Yet  Adams  took  so  little  praise  to  himself  for  this  moderation 
of  enforcement,  as  to  commend  his  secretary  for  insulting  the 
signers  of  a  county  address  against  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Acts,  by  refusing  their  request  to  forward  it  to  the  President, 
and  giving  them  a  taste  of  his  sauciest  pen  in  reply.* 

Adams's  failure  to  keep  his  subordinates  in  due  constraint  to 
the  public,  and  to  methodize  the  course  of  public  business,  pro 
duced  the  greatest  mischief;  mutual  co-operation  was  wanting, 
but  it  seemed  as  if  he  humored  his  secretaries  to  a  certain  point 
while  they  were  drawing  him  in  their  own  wake  like  some 
huge  leviathan,  who,  if  stirred  to  violence,  might  upset  them. 

The  first  prosecution  under  the  Sedition  law  was  that  of  a 
Republican  member  of  Congress  canvassing  for  his  re-election, 
none  other  in  fact  than  the  redoubtable  Matthew  Lyon,  of  Ver 
mont.  It  would  be  strange  if  political  malice  did  not  provoke 

peace  that  we  have  uniformly  and  perseveringly  cultivated,  and  har 
mony  between  us  and  France  may  be  restored  at  her  option.  But  to 
send  another  minister,  without  more  determinate  assurances  that  he 
would  be  received,  would  be  an  act  of  humiliation  to  which  the  United 
States  ought  not  to  submit.  It  must,  therefore,  be  left  with  France,  if 
she  is  indeed  desirous  of  accommodation,  to  take  the  requisite  steps." 

Preparations  for  war,  especially  in  the  direction  of  a  navy,  were 
urged  in  this  message. 

*  Adams's  Works,  1798.  As  on  most  other  occasions,  Pickering  has 
tened  to  print  his  effusion  in  the  Federal  newspapers. 


1798-99.  LYON   IS   PROSECUTED.  421 

the  Eastern  Federalists  to  the  experiment  of  crushing  by  the 
engine  of  the  law  that  excitable  little  Hibernian  whom  they  had 
once  failed  to  blot  out  of  the  Federalist  delegation  from  New 
England  by  other  means  rather  than  the  scathing  letter  of  Joel 
Barlow,  written  from  abroad  upon  our  foreign  policy,  which 
Lyori  read  at  a  public  meeting,  or  his  own  published  address 
to  his  constituents,  which  charged  the  President  with  "  un 
bounded  thirst  for  ridiculous  pomp,  foolish  adulation,  and  self 
ish  avarice."  Upon  these  latter  charges,  neverthe- 

.  October. 

less,  poor  Lyon  was  arrested,  tried,  convicted,  and 
sentenced  to  a  fine  of  $1000  and  four  mouths'  imprisonment. 
On  account  of  this  interference  with  the  Congressional  canvass 
there  was  no  choice  made  at  the  first  election,  but  on  a  second 
trial  Lyon  was  chosen,  being  then  in  prison.  Vermont's  loss 
in  her  representation  on  the  floor  of  the  House  by  the  impris 
onment  of  Lyon  for  most  of  the  present  winter  session  was 
brought  to  the  notice  both  of  Congress  and  the  Executive,  and 
as  Lyon  had  now  become  a  poor  man,  a  petition,  signed  by 
several  thousand  persons,  was  presented  to  the  President  for 
remitting  the  heavy  fine  imposed  on  him.  "  Does  Lyon  him 
self  petition?"  asked  Adams,  and  on  being  informed  that  he 
did  not,  "penitence  must  precede  pardon,"  he  answered. 

Lyon's  re-appearance  in  the  House  near  the  close  of 
,  .  11-  •       Felb- 10> 17"- 

the  session,  after  having  served  out  his  term  or  im 
prisonment  and  paid  his  fine,  was  the  signal  for  a  fresh  attempt 
for  his  expulsion,  and  this  on  the  ground  that  he  had  been 
convicted  for  sedition  ;  but  the  resolution  failed  to  obtain  the 
requisite  two-thirds  vote.* 

Jefferson,  who  had  assumed  the  responsible  guidance  of  the 
Republican  party  from  the  moment  of  his  accession  to  the 
Vice-Presidency,  and  was  keeping  the  sails  close-hauled  to 
weather  the  political  tempest,  watching  every  sign  of  the 
times  with  anxious  vigilance,  now  prepared  to  take  the  fullest 

*  Lyon  did  not  go  home  again  to  Vermont,  where  indictments  were 
still  pending  against  him,  besides  which  he  found  himself  pecuniarily 
embarrassed,  his  private  affairs  having  suffered  during  his  political  ser 
vice.  He  settled  in  Kentucky  after  his  second  term  had  expired.  Long 
after  his  death,  in  1840,  Congress  by  resolution  refunded  to  his  heirs  the 
amount  of  the  tine  lie  had  paid,  with  interest. 


422  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

advantage  of  these  Federal  follies.  The  first  publication  of 
the  X,  Y,  Z  dispatches  had  impressed  him  disagreeably,  but, 
concluding  that  Talleyrand  alone  must  have  been  corrupt  and 
not  the  Directory,  he  still  adhered  to  the  view  that  France 
herself  designed  no  rupture,  though  he  admitted,  with  regret, 
the  error  of  her  government  in  assuming  that  American  Re 
publicans  cared  more  for  the  cause  of  a  foreign  nation  than 
thei.r  own  country.  If  it  came  to  open  war,  he  observed,  as 
he  marked  the  wonderful  spirit  of  his  patriotic  fellow-citizens, 
all  would  unite  as  one  man  to  repel  the  invader.  A  personal 
friend,  influential  in  the  Virginia  legislature,  John  Taylor, 
of  Caroline,  in  view  of  the  disheartening  situation  for  their 
party,  had  raised  the  inquiry  whether  it  might  not  be  possible 
to  separate  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  from  the  Union. 
But  Jefferson  pointed  out  that  party  divisions  must  always 
exist  in  every  free  and  deliberate  society,  and  that  if  on  a 
temporary  superiority  of  the  one  party  the  other  should  resort 
to  disunion  no  Federal  government  could  ever  exist.  The 
present  situation,  he  argued,  was  not  a  natural  one  ;  the  peo 
ple  had  been  deluded;  untoward  events  since  Adams's  acces 
sion  had  produced  prevailing  impressions,  and  he  hoped  for  a 
change  of  sentiment  in  time.* 

Responsibility  for  a  large  army  and  for  costly  war  prepara 
tions,  which  only  an  increase  of  taxation  and  large  loans  could 
maintain,  was,  Jefferson  felt,  a  heavy  load  for  the  opposing 
party  to  carry,  unless,  indeed,  the  nation  proved  to  be  in  se 
rious  danger  of  invasion.  And  in  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts, 
the  grand  incumbrance  of  the  summer  session,  he  perceived  a 
tyrannizing  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  Federalist  leaders, 
which,  if  quickly  exposed,  would  bring  public  condemnation 
on  their  heads  with  crushing  weight.  To  accomplish  the 
latter  purpose  he  concerted  with  Madison  a  daring  plan  during 
the  recess ;  proceeding,  however,  secretly  and  with  the  utmost 
caution,  as  was  highly  needful,  for  the  Vice-President  was 
now  a  suspected  character,  his  movements  were  closely 
watched,  spies  dogged  his  footsteps,  and  even  his  private  let 
ters  were  in  danger  of  being  tampered  with. 

*  Jefferson's  Writings,  May-July,  1798. 


1798-99.    KENTUCKY   AND   VIRGINIA   RESOLUTIONS.    423 

ID  November  the  legislature  of  Kentucky  made  a  startling 
protest  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  Alien 
and  Sedition  Acts,  in  a  series  of  resolutions  which 
George  Nicholas  introduced,  and  which  declared  each  act  to 
be  "  not  law  but  altogether  void  and  of  no  force."  These 
resolutions  passed  with  but  a  few  dissenting  votes.  A  few 
weeks  later  the  Virginia  legislature,  under  John 
Taylor's  lead,  passed  resolutions  of  similar  drift  but 
more  moderate  expression,  pronouncing  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Acts  "  palpable  and  alarming  infractions  of  the  Constitution." 
The  Kentucky  resolutions  instructed  the  delegates  of  that 
State  to  use  their  best  efforts  to  procure  a  repeal  of  the  ob 
noxious  acts,  while  those  of  both  Kentucky  and  Virginia  made 
a  solemn  appeal  to  the  other  States,  as  though  for  a  concur 
rence  of  sentiment,  which  might  stimulate,  if  need  be,  a  closer 
co-operation  hereafter.  These  Kentucky  resolutions  were 
drafted  in  a  bolder  form  by  Jefferson,  while  those  of  Virginia 
proceeded  more  directly  from  Madison's  pen.  Jefferson's 
leading  idea  was  to  resolve  the  obnoxious  acts  unconstitutional 
and  void,  and  assuming  a  defiant  attitude  towards  the  Fed 
eral  Union  in  a  corresponding  sense,  to  push  the  principle  of 
resistance  to  Congress  only  so  far  as  events  might  render  it 
prudent  and  desirable.* 

In  thus  organizing  a  revolt  of  the  commune  against  class 
tyranny,  against  the  suppression  of  free  speech,  the  shackling 
of  the  press,  and  the  outlawry  of  men  who  had  sought  these 
shores  as  an  asylum  from  oppression,  Jefferson  calculated 
nicely  the  strength  of  the  two  opposing  forces.  This  was  to 
his  mind  a  politic  and  political  warfare,  requiring  firmness, 
but  a  passive  firmness.  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  he  hoped, 
would  make  such  a  diversion  of  opinion  in  the  Middle  States 
that  the  Federal  government  would  not  dare  coerce,  and  he 
doubtless  comprehended  well  that  the  blood  stirs  more  to 
rouse  the  lion  of  revolutionary  resistance  than  the  hare  of 
tame  protest.  But  in  his  ardor  when  drafting  these  bold  reso 
lutions,  he  struck  into  a  line  of  argument  which  asserted  a 
dangerous  latitude  of  discretion  for  States,  or  rather  State 

*  Jefferson's  Correspondence,  December,  1798. 


424  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

legislatures  over  Federal  legislation,  a  latitude  which  neither 
Nicholas  nor  the  judicious  Madison  chose  fully  at  this  time 
to  prove,  nor  Jefferson  himself  to  claim  again.  All  the  old 
thirteen  States  north  of  the  Potomac  hastened  to  disavow  the 
idea  that  State  legislatures  could  at  discretion  revise  and  dis 
approve  a  solemn  act  of  Congress.  But  the  discussion  thus 
elicited  served  its  main  purpose  in  separating  more  clearly  the 
friends  and  foes  of  the  present  prescriptive  enactments ;  the 
curvature  of  the  one  party  caused  the  other  to  bend  in  the 
opposite  and  more  dangerous  direction,  and  ardent  Federal 
ists  in  the  State  legislatures  who  now  proceeded  to  affirm  both 
the  constitutionality  and  policy  of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws 
vindicated  their  consistency  at  the  expense  of  their  states 
manship.* 

*  Madison,  who  survived  the  South  Carolina  troubles  in  1832,  was 
most  strenuous  at  that  date  to  condemn  the  theory  of  nullification  as 
then  propounded  by  Calhoun,  and  to  clear  both  himself  and  Jefferson, 
so  far  as  possible,  from  the  imputation  of  having  fathered  such  a  her 
esy,  in  the  above  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions.  It  is  matter  of 
record  that  Madison,  by  modifying  the  ideas  Jefferson  had  furnished 
him,  prepared  resolutions  and  an  address  for  the  Virginia  legislature, 
so  adroitly  and  yet  so  forcibly  worded  as  to  keep  the  State  within  con 
stitutional  bounds,  and  hint  only  at  forcible  resistance,  while  urging 
sister  States  to  concert  in  a  strictly  legitimate  protest.  Nicholas's  reso 
lutions  in  Kentucky  proposed  still  more  temperate  action,  though  as 
serting  bolder  dogmas,  Jefferson's  preamble  being  taken  but  not  his 
conclusion. 

In  point  of  fact  Jefferson's  theory  of  State  rights  was  bolder  (if  we 
may  assume  the  draft  of  the  Kentucky  resolutions  to  be  correct,  which  is 
contained  in  volume  9,  page  464,  of  his  published  works)  than  either 
the  Virginia  or  Kentucky  legislatures  chose  at  this  time  to  assert,  and 
proposed  a  more  positive  resistance.  His  eighth  and  ninth  resolutions 
in  this  draft  proposed  inviting  committees  of  correspondence  from  the 
several  States,  and  declared  that  in  case  the  General  Government  should 
abuse  its  authority  and  assume  powers  not  delegated,  "  a  nullification  of 
the  act  is  the  rightful  remedy ;  that  every  State  has  a  natural  right  in 
cases  not  within  the  compact  (casus  non  foederis)  to  nullify  of  their  own 
authority  all  assumptions  of  power  by  others  within  their  limits."  To 
this  dangerous  argument  Madison  (who  was,  after  all,  a  better  judge  of 
the  genuine  intendment  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  as  contrasted  with 
the  old  Articles  of  Confederation)  demurred  at  the  time,  making  the 
pertinent  suggestion  that,  even  supposing  a  State  might  judge  of  constitu- 


1798-99.      ALIEN   AND   SEDITION   LAWS   DISLIKED.       425 

Seated  once  more  at  the  Senate  table  upon  which  he  offi 
cially  signed  so  many  detestable  bills  on  behalf  of  that  body, 
whose  passage  he  was  powerless  to  prevent,  Jefferson,  who  had 
reached  Philadelphia  tardily  this  winter,  watched  the  change 
of  opinion  which  was  now  rapidly  going  on  in  the  Middle 
States.  While  animating  the  growing  sentiment  against  the 
Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  to  the  utmost,  he  courted  the  friend 
ship  of  Gerry  and  other  men  of  influence,  who  were  out  of 
favor  with  the  administration  party. 

The  untractable  temper  of  the  dominant  Federalists  never 
showed  itself  more  emphatically  than  in  their  persistent  con- 

tional  infractions,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  legislature  is  the  State's 
proper  organ,  but  this  would  rather  be  by  convention,  especially  as  the 
convention  was  the  organ  by  which  our  present  Constitution  was  adopted. 
Madison's  Writings,  December  29th,  1798;  ib.  1825. 

Jefferson's  present  theory  ought  to  be  considered  by  the  careful  stu 
dent  of  American  history  nothing  more  than  the  ingenious  invention 
of  a  forgetive  brain,  which  had  cast  about  unaided  for  some  argument 
upon  which  to  base  the  most  audacious  resistance  to  a  particular  wrong 
ful  and  unconstitutional  policy  inaugurated  by  the  Federal  government; 
some  argument  which  should  provoke  attention  to  the  merits  of  the 
cause,  meaning,  perhaps,  to  justify  still  further  that  fundamental  right 
of  revolution,  which  is  always  a  last  resort.  Logical  deductions  beyond 
what  the  actual  state  of  facts  here  warrant  must  have  been  clearly  in 
admissible,  even  among  the  willing  disciples  of  Jefferson's  school  of 
politics. 

Yet  experience  teaches  Americans  that,  so  long  as  the  people  choose 
their  legislators  and  rulers,  and  indirectly  change  laws,  treaties,  nay, 
even  the  Constitution  itself  and  public  policy,  no  ultimate  tribunal  ex 
ists  short  of  average  public  opinion,  or  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
not  even  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  (a  body  which  might 
be  packed  by  some  political  party  for  a  particular  occasion),  in  respect 
of  controversies  which  require  a  political  judgment. 

Jefferson's  drafted  resolutions,  which  the  Kentucky  legislature  now 
adopted  as  a  preamble,  made  the  error  (not  strange  at  so  early  a  devel 
opment  of  our  constitutional  history,  for  a  statesman  who  had  been 
abroad  all  the  while  the  new  Constitution  was  formed  and  was  earlier 
accustomed  to  the  Federal  plan)  of  referring  this  ultima  ratio  in  polit 
ical  questions  to  the  States  and  Federal  government  equally,  as  parties 
to  a  compact  or  treaty  having  no  common  arbiter,  rather  than  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  who  act  under  the  processes  prescribed  by 
the  Federal  Constitution,  and  who  respect  that  fundamental  instrument 
which  binds  States  and  their  communities  in  an  indissoluble  Union. 
VOL.  I.— 36 


426  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

tempt  of  the  petitions  which  uow  came  in  urging  Congress  to 
reverse  that  ill-chosen  internal  policy  which  disuujted  the 
people.  Alarmed  for  his  own  section  of  the  country,  Harper, 
in  the  House,  had  proposed  distributing  20,000  copies  of  the 
Alien  and  Sedition  Acts,  in  the  hope  of  proving  these  enact 
ments  better  than  they  were  commonly  believed  ;  but  he  was 
met  by  calls  for  printing  the  Constitution  likewise,  with  its 
amendments,  and  Republicans  and  Federalists  voted  him  down. 
Upon  the  numerous  memorials  for  a  repeal,  a  select  committee 
of  the  House,  Goodrich  at  their  head,  made  a  report 

February  25.  '         ,  , 

near  the  close  01  the  session  which  refused  to  repeal, 
but  defended  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  on  the  ground,  sub 
stantially,  that  they  formed  part  of  a  system  of  defence  well 
adapted  to  the  crisis ;  alleging  further,  that  liberty  was  not 
license,  and  as  to  aliens,  such  persons  had  no  constitutional 
rights  as  citizens,  but  remained  in  the  country  only  by  favor. 
A  party  caucus  of  the  House  had  determined  to  adopt  this  re 
port  without  discussion ;  accordingly  Gallatin,  Nicholas,  and 
Livingston,  who  spoke  against  it,  were  coughed  down,  or  dis 
turbed  by  unseemly  conversation  and  laughter,  and  without 
adjournment,  the  Federalists  voted  to  adopt  the  report  by 
52  to  48,  and  thus  clearly  committed  themselves  to  the  new 
policy.* 

Of  all  the  centralizing  Federalists  now  suspected  of  making 
the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  a  first  experiment  towards  depriv 
ing  States  and  the  people  of  their  reserved  constitutional  rights, 
none  appeared  more  aggressive  at  this  moment  than  the  lately 
discreet  Hamilton.  Dazzled  with  the  ambition  of  military 
dominion,  he  had  dropped  the  seed  of  the  Spanish  invasion 
schemes  where  the  soil  seemed  favorable,f  and  with  a  boldness 
which  the  hope  of  ultimate  success  must  have  winged  upward, 
his  rapid  mind  conceived  wild  plans  of  national  reconstruction 

*  Annals  of  Congress  ;  Jefferson's  Writings. 

f  See  5  Hamilton's  Works,  December,  1798,  January,  1799;  Letters 
to  Gunn  and  Otis,  chairmen  of  the  leading  committees  in  each  House. 
"  France,"  he  says  to  the  former,  "  is  not  to  be  considered  separately  from 
her  ally.  Tempting  objects  are  within  our  grasp."  To  Otis  he  leads  up 
less  mysteriously.  Probably  verbal  disclosures  were  made  to  others. 


1799.  HAMILTON'S  WILD  PLANS.  427 

fit  only  for  political  dreamers,  or  else  for  an  American  dictator 
to  execute  with  a  host  of  bayonets  behind  him.* 

The  session's  proceedings,  nevertheless,  dragged  heavily. 
The  first  act,  which  was  intended  to  rebuke  the  Logan  medi 
ating  efforts,  did  not  pass  until  the  end  of  January,  and  this 
made  it  a  crime,  punishable  with  fine  and  imprisonment,  for 
any  citizen,  without  permission  of  the  United  States,  to  hold 
correspondence  with  a  foreign  government  or  its  agents  with 
intent  to  influence  public  measures  or  disputes.")" 

*  See  Hamilton's  letter  to  Dayton,  Speaker  of  the  House,  one  of  his 
present  brigadiers,  1799.  In  this  remarkable  epistle,  after  anathematiz 
ing  the  attempt  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky  to  unite  tlie  State  legislatures 
in  direct  resistance  to  laws  of  the  Union,  as  an  attempt  to  change  the 
government,  Hamilton  urges  that  the  supporters  of  the  government  (i.e. 
the  Federalists)  adopt  vigorous  measures  of  counteraction,  to  "surround 
the  Constitution  with  more  ramparts,"  holding,  as  they  do  at  present,  all 
the  constitutional  authority. 

Among  the  measures  he  propounds  at  length  are  these:  (1.)  The  ex 
tension  of  the  Federal  judiciary  system  so  far  as  to  subdivide  each  State 
into  small  districts.  (2.)  A  regular  plan  of  internal  improvement  of 
roads,  etc.,  as  a  measure  which  would  make  the  United  States  univer 
sally  popular.  (3.)  The  institution  of  a  society  with  funds  to  encourage 
agriculture  and  the  arts.  (4.)  A  naval  force  up  to  six  ships  of  the  line, 
twelve  frigates,  and  twenty-four  sloops  of  war,  but  no  larger;  but  as  to 
the  army,  keeping  our  military  up  to  its  actual  footing  at  the  present, 
even  though  our  differences  with  France  should  be  settled  ;  organizing,  too,  the 
eventual  army  at  once,  establishing  a  military  academy, and  manufactories 
of  every  kind  essential  to  the  supply  of  the  army. 

He  adds  that  he  would  also  have  an  article  added  to  the  Constitution 
empowering  Congress  to  open  canals  ;  another  (which  he  admits  would 
be  dangerous  to  propose  at  this  time)  for  facilitating  the  subdivision  of 
the  great  States  mainly  at  the  discretion  of  Congress.  The  subdivision 
of  the  great  States,  which  will  always  feel  a  rivalship  with  the  common 
head,  should,  he  thinks,  be  the  regular  policy  of  the  Federal  govern 
ment. 

Lastly,  he  favors  laws  for  restraining  and  punishing  newspaper  libels, 
against  government,  not  leaving  such  cases  to  the  cold  protection  of 
State  courts.  "  Why,"  he  asks,  "  are  not  the  renegade  aliens  connected 
with  some  of  these  presses  sent  away  ?  These  laws  should  not  be  a  dead 
letter." 

The  above  remarkable  letter,  in  which  Hamilton  discloses  his  political 
theories  very  frankly,  is  to  be  found,  not  in  a  hostile  publication,  but  the 
authentic  collection  of  his  works,  vol.  vi,  p.  383. 

f  Act  January  30th,  1799.     There  was  a  long  debate  in  the  IIouso 


428  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  French  information  alluded  to  in  the  President's  open 
ing  message,  and  more  particularly  Gerry's  later  correspond 
ence  with  Talleyrand  (which  he  was  thought  to  allude  to)  was 
anxiously  awaited.  But  some  six  weeks  passed  before  the 
latter  documents  were  ready,  although  they  had  been  lying 
since  October  in  the  State  Department.  In  fact,  Pickering 
had  been  laboring,  not  to  let  the  Gerry  correspondence  tell  its 
own  story,  but  to  work  it  at  discretion  into  a  resume  of  the 
French  mission,  spiced  with  his  own  piquant  condiments,  and 
so  as  to  heighten  the  war  fever  which  a  production  of  the  docu 
ments  by  themselves  might  have  alleviated.  From  Pickering's 
report  the  President  struck  b^t  much  of  the  offensive  matter, 
particularly  that  which  reflected  upon  Gerry,*  -but  what  re 
mained,  was  sufficiently  irritating  in  tone  and  temper,  to  give 
the  administration  a  warlike  aspect.f  Besides 
Gerry's  letters  were  those  of  Skipwith,  the  consul- 
general  at  Paris,  whose  pacificating  efforts  with  the  adminis 
tration  on  France's  behalf,  caused  his  summary  dismissal  from 
office.  Upon  these  communications,  so  tardily  disclosed,  the 
army  and  navy  loan,  and  other  warlike  measures,  which  had 
hung  fire,  were  now  pressed  forward,  the  Republicans  calling 

over  Logan's  mission  which  seems  to  have  displeased  the  war  Federal 
ists  extremely.  Logan's  mission  was  the  visit  of  a  private  citizen,  acting 
purely  upon  his  own  responsibility,  and  making  no  false  pretence  of  an 
official  authority.  He  undertook  no  diplomatic  negotiations,  and  only 
brought  away  private  assurances  of  the  Directory's  good  will.  As  Logan 
himself  declared,  his  mission  was  his  own,  and  no  one  else  was  concerned 
in  it. 

*  "  I  am  not  going  to  send  to  Congress  a  philippic  against  Mr.  Gerry," 
said  Adams  to  Pickering. 

f  Pickering's  report  declared  that  in  his  opinion  France  was  trying 
to  fleece  us.  It  closed  with  the  reflection  that  France,  surprised  at 
America's  bold  stand  and  resistance,  now  cowers,  and  renounces  some  of 
its  demands.  "  But  I  hope,"  he  adds,  "  we  shall  remember  that  the  tiger 
crouches  before  he  leaps  upon  his  prey." 

Pickering  betrayed  his  vanity  for  pungent  composition,  as  well  as  a 
disregard  of  official  decorum,  by  printing  and  sending  to  the  leading 
Federalists  copies  of  the  portions  which  Adams  had  required  him  to 
omit.  His  rasping  style  of  diplomatic  correspondence  had  won  him  a 
toast  from  his  admirers  on  the  4th  of  July,  as  one  whose  sword  they 
trusted  would  prove  as  sharp  as  his  pen. 


1799.  PREPARATIONS    AGAINST   FRANCE.  429 

attention  in  vain  to  the  desire  for  peace  Talleyrand  had  mani 
fested  according  to  Gerry's  own  narrative. 

To  add  fuel  to  the  flame,  the  President  also  communicated 
an  arret  of  the  Directory  of  October  29th,  received    Tamm, 
through  King,  which  declared   that  neutrals  taken 
in   the  ships  of  their  enemies  would   be  treated  as  pirates. 
While  the  Senate  was  passing  an  act  of  retaliation,  founded 
upon  this  information,  the  President  received  announcement 
that  the  arret  was  suspended,  but  the  latter  fact,  for  some  reason, 
"was  not  communicated,  and   the  act  was  suffered  finally  to 
pass.* 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  eight  per  cent,  loans,  an  issue 
of  treasury  notes,  a  direct  tax,  and  new  stamp  duties  were  the 
provisional  expedients  in  contemplation  for  keeping  up  the 
new  force  establishment,  Hamilton  pressed  Congress  so  earn 
estly  to  recruit  and  maintain  the  army,  which  Adams  had  so 
continually  belittled  in  comparison  with  the  navy, 
that  Sedgwick  called  upon  the  President,  while  the 
Senate  was  preparing  the  army  bill,  to  ascertain  his  views  at 
length.  "  If  you  must  have  an  army,"  says  Adams,  "  I  will 
give  it  to  you  ;  but,  remember,  it  will  make  the  government 
more  unpopular  than  all  their  other  acts.  The  people  have 
submitted  with  more  patience  than  any  people  ever  did  to  the 
burden  of  taxes,  which  has  been  liberally  laid  on,  but  their 
patieflce  will  not  last  always."  This  tone  of  speech  surprised 
Sedgwick  ;  but  still  more  was  he  astonished,  when  the  Presi 
dent  asked  him  what  additional  authority  it  was  now  proposed 
to  give  the  comrnauder-in-chief.  "  None,"  he  answered;  "all 
that  has  been  proposed  is  to  give  him  a  new  title — that  of  gen 
eral."  "What!"  broke  out  Adams,  "are  you  going  to  ap 
point  him  general  over  the  President?  I  have  not  been  so 
blind  but  I  have  seen  a  combined  eflbrt  among  those  who  call 
themselves  the  friends  of  government,  to  annihilate  the  essen 
tial  powers  given  to  the  President.  This,  sir,"  he  continued, 
raising  his  voice,  "  my  understanding  has  perceived  and  my 
heart  felt."  Sedgwick  expressed  his  amazement,  and  with  all 

*  See  Annuls  of  Congress.      But  cf.  5  llildreth,  282,  which  is  not  in 
genuous  on  this  point. 


430  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

humility  prayed  the  President  to  mention  the  facts  upon  which 
he  grounded  so  strange  an  inference.  "  If  you  have  not  seen 
it,"  was  Adams's  rejoinder,  "  I  cannot  properly  go  into  the 
details."* 

While  the  voice  of  the  administration  was  publicly  raised 
for  war,  and  war  measures  were  being  driven  through 

February  18.  .  .  to 

the  national  legislature  by  whip  and  spur  in  the 
closing  weeks  of  the  session  ;  the  opposition  depressed,  the 
country  acquiescing,  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  personal  feuds 
which  had  taken  place  among  the  chieftains  of  their  cause, 
and  while  most,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  read  the  wishes  of  the 
administration  by  the  lurid  light  solely  which  the  President's 
cabinet  emitted  ;  Adams  suddenly  and  without  a  previous 
warning — the  new  line  of  negotiation  thrown  out  from  the 
Hague  having  been  kept  all  the  while  concealed  in  his  hand 
— sent  to  the  Senate  the  name  of  William  Vans  Murray  as 
minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  French  republic.  In  the  mes 
sage  which  nominated,  he  stated  that  this  minister  will  be 
instructed  not  to  go  to  France  without  direct  and  unequivocal 
assurances  from  the  French  government  that  he  shall  be  re 
ceived  in  character,  enjoy  the  due  privileges,  and  a  minister 
of  equal  rank,  title,  and  power,  be  appointed  to  discuss  and 
conclude  our  controversy  by  a  new  treaty.  The  occasion  of 
this  nomination  appeared  in  a  letter  written  by  Talleyrand  to 
Pichon,  September  28th,  and  communicated  from  the  Hague 
by  Murray,  and  recently  received  by  the  President,  which  ap 
proved  the  preliminary  overtures  made  by  Pichou,  and  in 
conformity  with  the  President's  own  reservation  in  his  war 
message  of  June,  furnished  assurance  that  whatever  plenipo 
tentiary  the  United  States  might  hereupon  send  to  France 
would  undoubtedly  be  received  with  the  respect  due  to  the 
representative  of  a  free,  independent,  and  powerful  nation. 

This  unexpected  turn  in  events  dismayed  and  divided  the 
Federalists  in  both  branches  while  their  opponents  exulted. 
Some  Senators  were  for  opposing  Murray's  confirmation,  others 

*  See  6  Hamilton's  Works,  393.  Sedgwick  related  this  interview 
confidentially  to  Hamilton  the  next  day.  Hamilton  had  represented 
that  militia  could  not  be  much  relied  upon,  and  that  the  force  already 
ordered  was  not  too  large  in  view  of  possible  internal  disorders. 


1799.  MURRAY    NOMINATED    ENVOY.  431 

knew  not  what  to  do.  The  nomination  went  over.  Pickering 
an<l  other  cabinet  officers,  when  called  upon,  professed  utter 
astonishment  as  well  as  displeasure,  saying  that  they  had  not 
been  consulted  in  this  new  business  by  the  President. 

The  committee  to  whom  the  nomination  was  referred  con 
cluded,  therefore,  to  confer  with  the  President,  partly  to  draw 
out  his  motives,  nor  altogether  without  the  hope  of  inducing 
him  to  withdraw  the  nomination  altogether,  or  else  modify  it 
by  substituting  a  new  commission  of  three.  Adams  was  baf 
fling  in  his  reply,  lofty,  and  by  no  means  compliant ;  but 
perceiving  presently  that  a  rejection  of  Murray  (by  no 
means  a  conspicuous  character)  was  imminent,  he 

nil  February  2u, 

privately  procured  a  postponement  or  the  adverse 
report  which  the  committee  had  prepared,  and  in  a  new  mes 
sage  withdrew  the  sole  nomination,  and  sent,  instead,  the  names 
of  three  commissioners,  Chief  Justice  Ellsworth,  Patrick 
Henry,  and  Murray.  With  this  opportune  play  he  won,  and 
bitterly  as  the  war  Federalists  in  the  Senate  felt  their  humili 
ation,  they  confirmed  the  nominations,  for  any  other  course 
would  have  been  ruinous.  Not  daring  to  confront  the  coun 
try  openly  as  an  implacable  faction,  advocates  of  a  French 
war,  those  who  had  sought  to  force  hostilities  trusted  to  oppor 
tunities  which  might  yet  arise  for  thwarting  the  newly  pro 
posed  mission  at  some  later  stage.* 

In  taking  this  new  and  decisive  step  towards  a  renewal  of 
negotiations  with  the  French  republic,  Adams  performed  a 
plain  duty  he  owed  to  the  American  public  with  an  unflinch 
ing  courage,  which  was  the  more  truly  admirable  in  that  he 
had  to  cross  thereby  the  wishes,  and  break  loose  from  the 

*  See  Works  of  Hamilton,  Adams,  and  Jefferson ;  5  Hildreth.  Murray's 
important  correspondence  will  be  found  in  8  John  Adams's  Works,  appen 
dix.  These  dispatches,  six  in  number,  show  that  the  Dutch  ministerat 
Paris  profferred,  but  in  vain,  his  good  services  at  Talleyrand's  desire,  to 
procure  a  reconciliation;  and  that  to  Talleyrand's  own  conciliating  over 
tures  to  Murray  the  latter  stated,  through  Piclion,  that  only  a  formal 
and  explicit  assurance  would  satisfy  the  American  government,  and  that 
he  would  communicate  any  such  assurance  to  the  President,  although  he 
had  no  authority  to  intervene  ;  and  that  Talleyrand  thereupon  gave  this 
written  assurance.  Vans  Murray's  sixth  dispatch,  covering  Talleyrand's 
assurance,  was  dated  October  7th. 


432  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

well- laid  schemes  of  the  most  talented  and  influential  faction 
of  his  own  party.  It  was  the  crown  of  his  administration, 
that  in  dealing  with  France,  whose  great  hero  was  engaged  in 
subverting  kingdoms  and  republics,  he  first  sent  out  an  em 
bassy  with  full  power  to  correct  mischiefs  whose  origin  ante 
dated  his  Presidency,  and  then,  resenting  with  spirit  the 
affronts  which  that  embassy  encountered,  forced  the  minister 
of  the  haughty  republic  to  apologize  as  never  to  other  rulers 
before ;  renewing  a  negotiation  which  in  due  time  re-estab 
lished  friendship  on  the  safer  basis  of  neutrality.  Never  since 
has  France  provoked  the  United  States  to  open  resistance,  nor 
assumed  a  right  of  parental  discipline  on  the  score  of  ancient 
benefits.  Harshly  as  Adams  was  assailed  by  the  blind  guides 
of  his  party  for  permitting  this  diplomatic  victory  to  be  a 
bloodless  one,  he  acted  as  the  situation  required.  Jealousy 
of  others,  and  irritation,  may  have  lent  him  strength  for  rescu 
ing  the  negotiation  as  it  rose  once  more  to  the  surface  ;  nor, 
perhaps,  was  he  the  less  strenuous,  from  a  desire  to  put  his 
house  in  order  for  the  next  presidential  election,  baffle  the 
hopes  of  ambitious  rivals,  sweep  out  the  military  dictators, 
rid  himself  of  Hamilton's  recruiting  sergeants,  lessen  the 
swarm  of  Wolcott's  tax-gatherers,  and  draw  the  brands  from 
beneath  Pickering's  hurly-burly  pot.  But,  frantic  and  fitful 
as  he  might  appear,  the  President,  from  his  stronger  sympathy 
with  the  disinterested  American  public,  comprehended  some 
truths  more  clearly  than  did  the  party  chieftains :  in  the 
first  place,  that  our  differences  with  France,  which  involved 
neither  rivalry  nor  disputed  domains,  could  be  amply  corn- 
posed  by  treaty  arrangement ;  next,  that  the  disposition  of  this 
government  to  concede  all  that  France  could  fairly  have  ex 
pected,  was  already  manifest  in  the  instructions  which  our 
late  envoys  bore  with  them  ;  lastly,  that  France  was  well  con 
vinced  of  this,  and,  regretting  the  late  folly,  was  truly  de 
sirous  of  restoring  harmony  between  the  two  republics,  by 
yielding  all  that  might  be  essential  to  this  end  in  return, — or 
else  the  Directory  would  not  have  required  the  bland  am) 
self-justifying  Talleyrand  to  hasten  cringing,  to  the  gate 
through  which  the  ruffled  envoys  had  filed  out,  and,  cap  in 
hand,  ask  their  return.  Negotiations,  thus  resumed,  gave, 


1799.  NEW    EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE.  433 

therefore,  every  hope  of  a  favorable  issue.  And  once  more, 
that  the  President's  new  course  was  not  dictated  by  private 
motives,  is  shown  by  the  decisive  circumstance  that  those 
foreign  arrangements  which  led  to  this  new  mission  had  pro 
ceeded  at  the  Hague  without  the  slightest  direction  on  his  own 
part  ;  so  that  the  only  question  to  resolve  was  how  to  act, 
when  Talleyrand  had  given  substantially  the  assurance  of  be 
coming  respect  which  the  offended  President  had  laid  down 
as  his  ultimatum. 

The  only  serious  mistake  Adams  made  at  this  time  was  in 
the  method  of  making  the  new  nomination,  acting  secretly,  as 
though  suspicious  of  all  men.  Necessarily  he  gave  offence  to 
the  members  of  a  cabinet  he  had  consulted  on  preliminaries; 
a  cabinet  which,  if  not  sympathetic  or  trustworthy,  he  ought 
rather  to  have  reconstructed  ;  and  worse  still,  by  giving  no 
warning,  he  encouraged  the  administration  supporters  in  Con 
gress  to  gallop  so  furiously  in  the  direction  of  battle  that  the 
party  was  now  thrown  suddenly  upon  its  haunches,  and  ex 
posed  to  general  ridicule,  if  not  resentment.  Not  dissimulat 
ing,  perhaps,  his  own  belief  that  peace  might  ultimately  ensue, 
he  had,  nevertheless,  by  his  intemperate  utterances,  and  still 
more  by  giving  way  to  secretaries  and  subordinates,  for  whose 
official  behavior  he  stood  answerable,  deepened  the  universal 
impression  that  a  conflict  with  France  was  inevitable.  His 
present  nomination  showed  the  sagacious  statesman  and  pa 
triot,  but  the  manner  of  making  it  was  that  of  a  misanthrope.* 


*  Sedgwick  angrily  writes,  February  19th:  "Had  the  foulest  heart 
and  the  ablest  head  in  the  world  been  permitted  to  select  the  most  em 
barrassing  and  ruinous  measure,  perhaps  it  would  have  been  precisely 
the  one  which  has  been  adopted." — Hamilton's  Works.  Pickering  prob 
ably  knew  fully  of  the  Talleyrand  overtures  ;  his  natural  course  would 
have  been  to  thwart  such  action  as  the  present.  The  President  was 
probably  aware  of  this,  and  that  the  majority  of  the  cabinet  were  of  the 
same  way  of  thinking.  He  probably  felt  that  most  of  bis  advisers 
plotted  against  him;  but  one  at  least,  Stoddert,  and  perhaps  Lee,  would 
have  stood  by  him  in  making  a  nomination. 

It  appears  that  about  January  loth  the  President  asked  Pickering  to 

consult  the  other  cabinet  officers  confidentially,  and  prepare  the  draft 

of  a  projected  treaty  such  as  might  be  acceded  to  if  proposed  by  France ; 

but  that  the  course  of  the  influential  members  was  to  secretly  baffle  him, 

VOL.  i. — 37 


434  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

U^'u 

Not  to  Washington  himself,  whose  character,  record,  influ 
ence,  and  present  military  station  entitled  him  to  the  chief 
consideration,  had  the  President  imparted  his  confidence  in 
the  momentous  business,  as  he  would  best  have  done,  and  so 
cemented  a  personal  friendship  which  constantly  loosened 
through  discourteous  inattentions.  He  had,  indeed,  but  lately 
received  from  Mount  Vernon  a  letter  which  covered 
a  communication  from  Barlow,  who,  writing  from 
Paris,  emphasized  to  the  commander-iu-chief  the  desire  France 
had  for  peace,  and  suggested  the  appointment  of  another  min 
ister  as  a  course  not  inconsistent  with  our  national  honor.  In 
transmitting  Barlow's  letter,  which  Washington  did  promptly, 
with  the  statement  that  this  was  the  only  communication  he 
had  ever  received  from  the  writer,  and  that  it  must  have  been 
made  either  with  a  very  good  or  a  very  bad  design,  he  perti 
nently  observed :  "  Should  you  be  of  opinion  that  his  letter 
is  calculated  to  bring  on  negotiations  upon  open,  fair,  and 
honorable  grounds,  and  to  merit  a  reply,  and  will  instruct  me 
as  to  the  tenor  of  it,  I  shall,  with  pleasure  and  alacrity,  obey 
your  orders;  more  especially  if  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
it  would  become  a  means,  however  small,  of  restoring  peace 
and  tranquillity  to  the  United  States  upon  just,  honorable,  and 
dignified  terms,  which  I  am  persuaded  is  the  ardent  desire  of 
all  the  friends  of  this  rising  empire."  This  frank  letter,  com 
ing  at  such  a  moment  and  tending  to  confirm  his  own  opinions 
of  French  policy,  must  have  found  Adams  engaged  in  a  similar 
train  of  thought.  Not,  however,  confiding  his  more  impor 
tant  intelligence  in  response,  nor  using  the  sentiments  of  his 
predecessor,  as  he  might  have  done,  to  disarm  refractory  oppo 
sition  in  his  official  household,  the  President  stood  out  to  sea 
alone,  as  though  to  assert  his  sufficiency  for  regulating  foreign 
intercourse.  But  the  day  after  he  had  nominated  Murray  to 
the  Senate,  he  informed  Washington  of  what  he  had 
done  in  a  letter,  which  seemed  to  disparage,  as  much 
as  possible,  his  good  sense  and  foresight  in  taking  the  step;  for 

while  avoiding  an  open  discussion.  Perhaps  Adams  took  offence  at  this 
uncandid  behavior,  and  meant  to  repay  them  in  their  coin.  See  8  John 
Adams's  Works. 


1799.  MEASURES   OF   THE   SESSION.  435 

disclaiming,  all  regard  for  the  Barlows,  and  the  Logans,  and 
this  "  babyish  and  womanly  blubbering  for  peace,"  as  he  styled 
it,  he  declared  his  contempt  for  the  political  parties  alike 
under  our  system,  which,  he  says,  embrace  peace  or  war  "  when 
they  think  they  can  employ  either  for  electioneering  pur 
poses."* 

With  suppressed  emotions  of  rage  and  humiliation  the  ad 
ministration  majority  in  Congress  dispatched  the  main  busi 
ness  of  the  session  in  the  few  days  which  remained,  holding  a 
night  session  finally  so  as  to  adjourn  on  Sunday  morning, 
March  3d.  As  no  sign  had  been  given  by  the  President  for 
relaxing  war  preparations,  but  rather  the  reverse,  Congress 
provided  liberally  for  the  army  and  navy,  increasing  the  latter 
by  six  ships  of  74  guns,  and  six  sloops,  and  promulgating 
a  code  of  naval  regulations. f  The  retaliation  bill  against 
France  was  also  passed. J  Thirteen  million  dollars  were  deemed 
requisite  for  the  lavish  expenditure  of  this  year.  And,  as  if 
to  flout  the  public,  already  displeased  with  the  treatment  of 
the  alien  and  sedition  petitions,  and  soon  to  feel  the  weight  of 
new  taxation,  the  administration  party  took  this  unsuitable 
time  to  raise  quite  liberally  the  salaries  of  the  department  heads 
and  other  high  officials,§  a  common  indication,  in  a  govern 
ment  like  ours,  that  the  ruling  set  has  soared  beyond  a  sense 
of  immediate  responsibility  to  the  public.  Economy  and  the 
husbandry  of  resources  were  not  among  the  cardinal  virtues 
of  the  Federalist  party  in  these  its  latter  days. 


SECTION  II. 

PERIOD   OF    SIXTH    CONGRESS. 

MARCH  4,  1799-MAiicn  3,  1801. 

ONCE  more  the  President  provoked  censure  and  fostered  the 
cabals  which  were  spreading  over  his  administration,  by  hast 
ening  home  as  soon  as  Congress  had  adjourned,  like  a  school- 

*  Adams's  and  Washington's  Works,  1799. 

f  Acts  February  25th,  1799  ;  March  2d,  1799  ;  March  3d,  1799. 

J  Act  March  2d,  1799.  I  Act  March  2d,  1799. 


436  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

boy  dismissed  for  the  holidays.  On  his  farm  he  now  remained 
from  the  first  touch  of  spring  until  mid-autumn,  enjoying  that 
domestic  seclusion  in  which  he  found  his  happiest  relaxation 
from  the  cares  of  state,  and  the  society  of  a  spouse,  loving 
and  accomplished,  who  served,  through  a  long  public  career, 
as  his  most  confidential  adviser.  But  the  strength  of  these 
family  ties,  an  admirable  proof  of  his  virtue  and  constancy, 
proved  an  impediment  to  his  official  progress.  To  a  personal 
friend  who  now  sent  a  decided  remonstrance  against  his  being 
away  so  much  of  the  time  from  the  seat  of  government,  and 
cautioned  him  against  trusting  too  much  to  the  public  impres 
sion  made  by  his  subordinates,*  Adams  responded  in  an 
overconfident  strain:  the  "public  sentiment"  he  disdained; 
all  the  public  business  went  on  well  through  the  mails,  he 
said  ;  his  wife  was  better  now  but  still  delicate ;  and  he  ad 
ministered  the  government  at  Quincy  as  well  as  he  could  have 
done  at  Philadelphia. f  But  Adams  was  much  mistaken. 
Upon  department  officers  of  moderate  capabilities,  whose  ideas 
ran  often  counter  to  his  own,  men,  narrow  and  inflexible  for 
the  most  part,  whom  he  had  lately  offended  by  reserving  his 
confidence  from  them,  and  in  whom  the  country  reposed  no 
especial  confidence,  he  still  placed  unusual  responsibilities  at 
a  critical  period,  and  made  their  tasks  the  harder  while  setting 
the  bad  example  of  taking  his  ease.  Dispatch  was  impossible. 
His  approval  or  disapproval,  even  in  diplomatic  affairs,  or 
the  army  and  navy  arrangements,  would  often  be  in  a  sketchy 
or  uncertain  way,  or  upon  a  necessarily  imperfect  knowledge 
of  facts.  So,  too,  long  delays  of  the  mail  occurred,  so  as  to 
involve  perhaps  some  new  development  of  the  affair  submitted 
to  him.  Hence  it  was  not  strange  if  misunderstandings  oc 
curred,  or  cabinet  officers,  left  in  a  quandary,  would  carry 
things  their  own  way  instead  of  committing  new  facts  or  re- 
arguing  a  doubtful  point. J  The  more  the  President  relaxed 

*  Uriah  Forrest,  wrote  April  28th,  1799:  "The  people  elected  you 
to  administer  the  government.  They  did  not  elect  your  officers,  nor  do 
they  (however  much  they  respect  them)  think  them  equal  to  govern, 
without  your  presence  and  control." 

f  8  John  Adams's  Works. 

£  As  an  instance  in  point,  see  8  John  Adams's  Works.  Propositions 
were  signed  by  all  the  Cabinet  relative  to  St.  Domingo,  and  mailed  to 


1799.  THE    PRESIDENT   AT    HOME.  437 

his  own  influence,  in  fact,  the  more  the  majority  succumbed 
to  the  master-spirit  of  Hamilton,  who  had  already,  as  inspector- 
general,  found  opportunity  for  pervading  departments.  Wash 
ington  when  President,  though  frequently  away,  was  more  con 
stantly  at  the  capital  than  Adams,  and  made  of  his  absence  a 
fit  occasion  usually  for  studying  the  people  of  certain  States,  or 
transacting  some  distant  administrative  business,  instead  of 
playing  the  truant. 

The  President  had,  with  the  assent  of  the  Senate,  empowered 
King,  our  minister  at  Loudou,  to  treat  with  Russia,  and 
Smith,  at  Lisbon,  with  Turkey.  From  the  expected  negotia 
tions  with  these  enemies  of  France  nothing,  however,  resulted. 
A  consul-general  was  appointed  to  represent  the  United  States 
at  St.  Domingo,  where  Toussaint  held  the  French,  portion  of 
the  island,  and  was  still  extending  his  conquest  over  the 
Spanish  part,  in  the  course  of  a  fierce  struggle  between  the 
mixed  and  black  races.  Both  Spain  and  Great  Britain  had 
by  this  time  given  up  the  hope  of  conquering  the  island  of  St. 
Domingo ;  but  the  latter  government  now  proposed  a  joint 
commercial  arrangement  with  the  United  States  for  keeping 
Port-au-Prince  their  sole  port  of  entry.  This  project  did  not 
please  the  President,  who  approved  of  consulting  Great  Britain, 
but  at  the  same  time  keeping  disjoined  from  her  schemes. 
The  idea  of  the  administration  in  sending  a  consul-general 
appears  to  have  been  to  silently  encourage  Toussaiut's  in 
dependence  of  France,  while  not  committing  the 

„.  3  April-June. 

United  States  openly  to  it.*     But  Toussamt,  acting 
as  an  independent  chief,  acknowledged,  nevertheless,  the  nomi 
nal  authority  of  the  French  republic. 

The  President's  marked   aversion  to   military   expeditions 


the  President ;  he  demurred  to  one  point  in  a  suggestive  way,  refer 
ring  the  decision  to  a  certain  oflicer;  but  that  officer  had  gone,  and  so 
Pickering  with  the  consent  of  his  colleagues  took  his  own  course. 

*  See  7  J.  C.  Hamilton's  KepuMic;  5  Hildreth.  This,  at  least,  was 
the  policy  of  Hamilton,  whom  Pickering  had  secretly  consulted  upon  the 
appointment  of  a  minister.  The  plan  of  government  Hamilton  pro 
posed,  in  case  of  St.  Domingo's  independence  of  France,  was  "  military 
partaking  of  the  feudal  system,"  as  he  expressed  it. 


438  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV, 

and  whatever  might  work  into  a  joint  alliance  with  England, 
proved  quite  disconcerting  to  those  who  were  deep 
in  the  Miranda  project.     King,  writing  to  Hamil 
ton  from  London  in  the  winter,  showed  the  greatest  anxiety  to 
have   an  American  army  raised  and    working,  lest  France 

should  forestall  action  by  securing  a  peaceful  settle- 
March  4.  ...  ~.  ... 

ment  01  her  controversy.    Unce  more,  in  the  spring, 

ignorant  of  the  appointment  of  new  plenipotentiaries  to 
France,  King  conveyed  to  Hamilton  his  surprise  that  the 
President  had  not  disclosed  his  sentiments  on  the  Miranda 
expedition,  though  the  subject  had  been  treated  again  and 
again  in  his  dispatches. 

Hamilton,  still  sanguine  of  the  enterprise,  might,  as  late  as 
June,  be  seen  uncurtaining  this  mysterious  inva 
sion,  by  way  of  affording  inducement  to  McHenry 
to  urge  in  his  official  capacity,  upon  the  reluctant  Adams, 
the  completion  of  the  provisional  laud  forces ;  and  in  aid  of 
which  he  proposed  further  a  mutual  consultation  by  the 
Cabinet.*  It  was  galling,  surely,  that  one  of  his  active  mettle, 
seeking  glory  and  immortality  from  the  swift  occasion,  should 
be  longer  confined  to  this  miserable  discipline  of  a  skeleton 
army  of  home-guards,  and  dissipate  his  zeal  in  regulating  the 
length  of  step,  the  form  of  pay-rolls,  and  all  the  worthless 
millinery  of  cocked  hats  and  gilt 'buttons;  and  having  no 
bloodier  work  on  his  hands  than  that  of  court-martialling  and 
sentencing  some  poor  private  for  deserting  the  muster  groimd.f 
Languor,  indecision,  discord,  and  useless  expenditure  ruled  in. 
the  War  Department ;  line  officers  drew  their  pay  and  did  little 
else. 

But  Adams  heeded  little  as  ever  the  ambitions  of  an  army 

*  "  Besides  the  eventual  security  against  invasion,"  he  says,  "  we 
ought  certainly  to  look  to  the  possession  of  the  Floridas  and  Louisiana, 
and  we  ought  to  squint  at  South  America." 

f  The  execution  of  one  Kichard  Hunt  for  this  offence  was  earnestly 
impressed  by  him  upon  the  President,  as  a  severity  indispensable  for 
discipline.  But  when  it  appeared  that  the  man  had  pleaded  guilty,  and 
only  one  witness  was  examined,  and  that  of  the  officers  composing  the 
court  all  but  one  were  as  yet  without  their  commissions,  Hamilton  de 
sisted  from  enforcing  the  sentence  of  his  own  accord. 


1799.  THE   MIRANDA    SCHEME   FAILS.  439 

or  epaulettecl  officers.     The  Miranda  expedition   he  silently 
discountenanced  from  the  first,  and  in  the  speedy  course  of 
events  it  went  to  the  limbo  of  disappointed  hopes. 
McHenry's  intervention  on  Hamilton's  behalf  \von 
him  only  a  snub  from  the  President  for  magnifying  his  office. 
Wolcott,  straitened  for  funds,  had  shown  the  President  there 
would  not  be  money  enough  in  the  treasury  to  support  both  an 
army  and  navy  increase,  and  as  between  the  two  the  Presi 
dent's  preference  was  unequivocal. 

The  first  encounter  between  French  and  American  naval 
vessels  had  taken  place  in  the  West  Indies  before 

,1  •     ,     i      ji  f  February  9, 

the  new  envoys   were  appointed,  the  news  of  our 
victory  reaching  Philadelphia  shortly  after  the  adjournment 
of  Congress.     The  Constellation,  which  was  the  flag-ship  of 
Truxton's  squadron  in  that  neighborhood,  after  a  three  hours' 
chase,  closed  with  L'Insurgente,  and  in  a  sharp  fight  of  an  hour 

and  a  quarter,  compelled  the  French  frigate  to  strike 

,          T-«     i  •        11  •       i  Feb-  J^- 

ner  colors.    1  or  his  gallantry  in  a  later  engagement, 

Truxton  presently  received  from  Congress  a  gold  medal.* 

The  great  body  of  the  Federalists,  North  as  well  as  South, 
approved  of  the  President's  course  in  concluding,  upon  Tal 
leyrand's  new  assurances,  to  send  another  commission  to 
France,  unaware  that  a  division  had  occurred  in  the  party 
councils.  Nor  were  they  desirous  of  having  the  army  aug 
mented  so  long  as  no  danger  of  immediate  invasion  appeared. 
Among  those  who  expressed  a  decided  commendation  of  the 
mission  were  Marshall  and  Knox ;  Lafayette,  to  whom  Na 
poleon  had  shown  recent  favor,  rejoiced  at  it ;  and  Jay, 
though  doubtful  of  such  a  policy,  advised  an  adherence  to 
the  President  for  the  sake  of  harmony. f  But  to  Hamilton, 
to  the  British  inclined,  and  to  a  powerful  faction  at  the  east 
ward  in  particular,  whose  operation  upon  the  Executive  was 
through  the  Secretary  of  State  and  their  own  delegations  in 
Congress,  a  narrow  and  intolerant  policy  seemed  the  true 
one  ;  they  wished  Jacobinism  at  home  crushed  out  by  the 

*  See  5  Ilildreth  as  to  the  pursuit  of  a  French  frigate,  La  Vengeance, 
f  See  8  John  Adams's  Works;  Jay's  Works. 


440  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

strong  arm,  and  as  to  France,  any  treaty  with  her  was  to  be 
shunned  like  the  league  of  Dr.  Faustus  and  the  devil.*  Some 
of  these  would  gladly  have  seen  America  make  a  common 
cause  with  England  ;  while  others  stopped  at  the  wish  to  avoid 
offending  her  by  entering  into  any  negotiations  of  which  that 
nation  would  disapprove.  To  this  set  belonged  most  of  the 
prominent  leaders  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut. 

Talleyrand  gave  the  specific  assurances  of  good  treatment 
requisite  under  the  President's  conditions  stated  in 

May  5.      -        l     . 

appointing  the  new  embassy;  whereupon  Adams 
directed  that  instructions  should  be  given  for  the  envoys  to 
depart.  Patrick  Henry  having  declined  to  serve,  William 
R.  Davie,  the  Federalist  governor  of  North  Carolina,  was 
already  selected  in  his  stead.  The  baffling  purpose  of  the 
An n«st  9  Cabinet,  where  Pickering  appeared  the  ruling  spirit, 

had  been  variously  shown,  as  in  the  Secretary's 
quibbling  comments  upon  Talleyrand's  language.  But  the 
news  now  arriving  that  the  French  Directory  had  been  newly 
reorganized  by  the  dismissal  of  Treilhard,  and  the  forced 
resignation  of  La  Peaux  and  Merlin,  this  was  hopefully  seized 
as  a  last  rope  by  the  obstructionists  of  the  mission.  Accord 
ingly,  in  view  of  the  instability  of  French  affairs,  Pickering 
earnestly  advised  the  President,  on  behalf  of  the  Cabinet,  that 
the  mission  be  temporarily  suspended ;  and  though  sending  to 

Quincy  the  draft  of  instructions  to  the  envoys  which 

September  11.  ,  J  J 

he  had  prepared  by  the  President  s  command,  he 
followed  this  by  a  secret  effort  with  his  friend  Cabot  to  force 
the  President  to  decide  upon  this  suspension.")"  Cabot,  who  had 
been  endeavoring  to  reconcile  Adams,  during  the  summer,  to 
the  British  wing  of  the  party,  observed  with  dismay  that  the 
President's  old  jealousy  of  Hamilton  was  restored  with  tenfold 
force,  and  that  he  distrusted  Pickering,  Wolcott,  and  all  cen- 
surers  of  Gerry. 

Not  even  King  believed  that  the  French  republic  would  be 
overthrown  by  the  new  change  in  the  Directory,  nor  the  for 
eign  policy  of  that  country  seriously  affected  ;  as  Adams  him- 

*  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  1799.      "Behold  France,"  writes  Ames  as 
Laocoon  ;  "  that  open  hell  still  ringing  with  agonies  and  blasphemies." 
f  See  8  John  Adams's  Works ;  Cabot's  Life. 


1799.  THE   NEW    ENVOYS.  441 

self  suggested,  there  might  be  an  advantage  in  having  envoys 
ou  the  spot,  even  supposing  a  monarch  were  restored  ;  and  all 
the  signs  indicated  that  the  present  opportunity  was  most 
favorable  for  treaty  negotiations.  On  the  other  hand,  as  Pick 
ering  well  apprehended,  a  few  weeks'  delay  in  sending  the 
envoys  would  necessitate  postponing  their  voyage  to  the  fol 
lowing  spring,  in  which  case  there  might  be  a  collapse  of  the 
whole  business  and  utter  failure. 

But  the  Pickering  influence,  sinister  as  it  was,  and  reinforced 
by  Hamilton's  advice,  extended  only  to   the  majority  of  the 
Cabinet;  Wolcott,  McHenry,  and  the  Secretary  of  State  him 
self.     Lee  and  Stoddert  were  against  so  hazardous  a  step  as 
to  suspend  at  this  time  the  French  mission.     The  latter  of  these 
officers,  altogether   displeased  with  the  plots  which  were  now 
forming,  hinted   to  the  President  quite  broadly  the 
importance  of  his  speedy  return   to  the  seat  of  gov 
ernment.    This  proving  insufficient,  Stoddert  wrote  again  more 
explicitly,  to  say  that  all  solemnity,  as  he  thought, 
ought  to  be  given  to  the  question  of  suspending  the 
mission  ;  that  the  President  could  act  better  when  surrounded 
by  the  officers  of  government.     Pickering  was  likely,  he  added, 
to  prepare  the  letters  of  instruction  with  too  much  acrimony, 
and   there  was  fear  that  artful   and  designing  men  would  use 
the  President's  absence  for  making  his  re-election  doubtful.* 

Adams's  jealousy  was  fully  aroused  by  Stoddert's  second 
letter;  and  he  prepared, f  upon  receiving  it,  to  set  out  for 
Trenton,  which  was  now  the  Cabinet  headquarters.  Predis 
posed,  but  not  predetermined,  upon  the  course  to  pursue,  he 
held  his  judgment  in  suspense  as  requested  ;  and  notifying 
the  department  heads  to  let  the  mission  question  stand  until 
his  arrival,  he  so  nattered  the  hopes  of  the  anti-French  junto, 
though  undesignedly,!  that  they  appeared  sensibly  flushed  on 

*  8  John  Adams's  Works.  In  the  letter  of  September  13th,  Stod 
dert  significantly  states  it  as  his  own  opinion,  that  we  have  a  right  to 
make  peace  with  France  without  England's  permission. 

f  On  account  of  the  prevalence  of  yellow  lever  in  Philadelphia,  the 
Executive  heads  had  moved  their  offices  temporarily  to  this  place. 

I  In  order  to  charge  Adams  with  dissimulation  of  his  real  intentions 
at  this  date,  a  letter  has  frequently  been  referred  to,  which  he  wrote 


442  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

his  arrival,  as  though  the  President  had  already  succumbed  to 
their  influence.     What  Adams  saw,  however,  on  his 
arrival  must  have  confirmed  not  only  the  impolicy 
of  suspending  the  mission  but  his  suspicions  of  Cabinet  infi 
delity  as  well  ;  and  the  inopportune  appearance  of  Hamilton 
and  Ellsworth  on  the  scene,  as  though  they  had  come  all  the 
way  to  Trenton  to  tutor  the  chief  Executive,  fixed  his  deter 
mination  to  teach  unruly  subordinates  a  lesson.     Calling  his 
Cabinet  together  on  the  evening  of  October  loth,  he  went 
over  the  instructions  with  them  and  had  them  finally 
settled,  as  by  general  assent,  near  midnight.     Soon 
after  daybreak  the  next  morning,  though  he  had  given  no 
previous  indication,  the  night  before,  that    the    instructions 
were  likely  to  be  issued  for  the   present,  nor   asked  Cabinet 
advice  on  the  all-important  point  of  suspension,  he 
sent  official  orders  to  Pickering  for  the  envoys  to 
depart  immediately.* 


September  22d,  to  Ellsworth,  and  which,  in  language,  admits  it  likely 
that  the  mission  would  be  postponed  on  account  of  convulsions  in 
France.  This  letter  was  meant  probably  to  indicate  no  more  than  the 
actual  suspension  of  his  own  decision  on  the  subject,  though  literally 
expressed  more  strongly.  But  a  strange  use  was  made  of  that  letter 
(which  Ellsworth  perhaps  had  elicited  with  the  approval  of  officials  in 
the  Cabinet),  and  certainly  beyond  the  President's  possible  intent  of 
producing  any  misconception.  For  Ellsworth  at  once  wrote  to  Picker 
ing,  September  26th,  quoting  the  President's  language;  whereupon, 
Pickering,  while  expressing  wrath,  that  Adams  should  not  have  first 
confided  the  postponement  intent  to  his  Cabinet,  communicated  the  good 
news  exultingly  to  Cabot,  September  29th.  The  wishes  and  hopes  of  the 
Cabinet  clique  against  whose  enmity  Stoddert  had  warned  Adams,  led 
them  to  treat  the  letter  to  Ellsworth  with  as  much  consideration  as 
though  he  had  addressed  the  secretaries  officially  to  this  effect. 

Ellsworth  is  not  to  be  censured  for  interfering  with  the  dispatch  of  the 
business  in  which  he  was  commissioned ;  but  he  dreaded  the  voyage, 
and  was  quite  indifferent  as  to  the  purposes  of  the  Frencli  embassy. 

Adams  expressed  to  Pickering,  himself,  his  doubts  as  to  whether  the 
envoys  would  be  sent  off'  hastily ;  but  otherwise  indicated  no  intention 
to  suspend.  8  John  Adams's  Works,  1799,  September. 

*  See  7  J.  C.  Hamilton;  Gibbs's  Federal  Administrations;  Cabot's 
Life  ;  8  John  Adams's  Works.  We  have  here  given  the  theory  of  John 
Adams's  conduct,  which  seems  most  reconcilable  with  the  whole  testi- 


1799.  ADAMS   SENDS  THE   ENVOYS.  443 

Foiled  a  second  time  with  their  own  weapons,  and  at  the  very 
moment  when  they  believed  the  thread  of  the  mission  project 
had  snapped  asunder,  the  inner  marplots  of  the  administration 
now  dispatched  the  doleful  tidings  to  the  outer  ones  whom  they 
had  misled  by  their  own  overconfidence.  "  The  die  is  cast," 
writes  Pickering;  "the  envoys  go  to  France,  or  rather  to 
Europe,  to  see  if  they  can  enter  France ;"  and  he  announces 
the  slight  the  President  had  placed  upon  his  Cabinet.*  "  Thus 
are  the  United  States  governed,"  says  Wolcott  soon  after, 
"  as  Jupiter  is  represented  to  have  governed  Olympus."! 

Hamilton,  who  appears  to  have  had  a  fruitless  interview 
with  the  President  at  Trenton,  for  the  purpose  of  dissuading 
the  departure  of  the  envoys,  poured  out  his  own  disappointment 
upon  Washington,  from  whose  confidence,  however,  he  still 
withheld  the  Miranda  project,  and  he  sought  thus  to  inflame 
the  resentment  of  his  commander  in-chief  against  Adams. 
"I  hope,"  he  gravely  says,  "that  the  President's  decision  may 
not,  in  its  consequences,  involve  the  United  States  in  a  war  on 
the  si^e  of  France  with  her  enemies. "t 


iiiony  and  surrounding  circumstances.  It  is  highly  probable  that 
Adams  left  for  Trenton  without  having  decided  positively  whether  to 
send  the  envoys  or  not ;  for  otherwise,  he  certainly  deceived  Ellsworth 
and  members  of  the  Cabinet  without  apparent  purpose.  But  that  he 
was  predetermined  by  the  time  the  Cabinet  meeting  of  October  loth 
assembled  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  facts  an  1  the  opinions  of  his 
Cabinet  officers.  What  had  influenced  him  may  be  left  to  conjecture; 
but  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  intrigues  Stoddert  had  intimated  would 
well  enough  suffice.  Stoddert  wrote  in  1809  that  he  was  of  the  impres 
sion  Adams  did  not  consult  him  about  sending  the  envoys,  but  he  did 
not  feel  positive.  See  Cabot's  Life.  Neither  Stoddert  nor  Lee  appears 
to  have  felt  aggrieved  at  Adams's  sudden  action. 

It  is  said  that  Hamilton's  inopportune  presence  at  Trenton  was  on 
military  business. 

*  Pickering  to  Cabot,  October  22d,  1799;  Cabot's  Life.  It  is  here 
shown  that  one  plan  for  thwarting  the  mission  had  been  to  persuade 
Ellsworth  to  decline.  But  this,  Pickering  concluded  would  have  been 
useless,  for  then  the  President  would  put  some  such  man  as  Madison  or 
Burr  in  Ellsworth's  place. 

f  Wolcott  to  Cabot,  November  4th,  1799;  Cabot's  Life. 

J  Hamilton's  and  Washington's  Writings,  1799.  It  is  not  easy  to  sup 
pose  that  one  of  Hamilton's  keen  vision,  seriously  feared  any  such  conse 
quence  as  he  here  expressed,  but  rather  that  the  mission  would  accom- 


444  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  enraged  secretaries  were  only  restrained  by  motives  of 
self-interest  from  tendering,  as  they  should  have  done,  and  as 
the  country  would  readily  have  submitted  to,  their  instant 
resignations.  Submitting,  however,  in  silence  to  their  chief's 
command,  as  necessity  compelled,  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
considered  that  their  omission  to  make  open  and  solemn  protest 
against  the  President  bound  each  in  honor  to  accept  the  dis 
cipline,  and  by  better  constancy  in  the  future  make  amends 
for  the  past.  On  the  contrary,  indeed,  Pickering,  Wolcott, 
and  McHeury,  now  undertook  to  revenge  themselves  upon 
Adams,  by  procuring  some  candidate  to  supplant  him  at  the 
next  Presidential  election.  By  their  ignoble  continuance  in 
place  they  hoped  to  accomplish  this  the  easier. 

The  President's  final  determination  to  send  the  envoys, 
accorded  not  only  with  his  policy  in  first  appointing  them, 
but  likewise  with  the  just  expectations  of  three-fourths  of  the 
Federalist  rank  and  file,  and  the  general  sentiment  of  the 
country.  The  foreign  news  confirmed  the  wisdom  of  such  a 
proceeding;  France  herself  might  fairly  complain  if*  mere 
dilatoriness  were  suffered  to  retard  the  negotiation,  and  only 
they  who  were  stubbornly  bent  on  defeating  pacification  at  all 
hazards,  could  have  asked  him  to  so  stultify  himself  as  to  yield 
to  their  preferences. 

The  high  horse  the  ruling  party  bestrode  for  the  internal 
discipline  of  the  Union,  at  length  threatened  to  cast  it.  Of 
the  approaching  catastrophe,  the  first  warning  came  from  the 
middle  section  of  the  country,  where  the  daring  example  of 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  bore  ripening  fruit;  and  simultaneously 
with  Adams's  arrival  at  Trenton*  occurred  the  State  election 


plish  its  work.  His  private  advices  from  King  assured  him  that  the 
recent  changes  in  the  Directory  would  prove  no  serious  impediment  to 
the  mission,  and  that  a  fair  treaty  with  France  was  easily  attainable. 

*  In  7  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic,  the  ingenious  theory  is  put  forth  that 
John  Adams  waited  at  Trenton  for  news  of  this  election  in  order  to  de 
termine  whether  to  send  the  envoys  or  not,  and  that  his  decision  pro 
ceeded  upon  receipt  of  the  adverse  news.  But  no  suggestion  of  this  kind 
appears  in  the  contemporary  writings  of  those  concerned  in  the  matter, 
and  it  is  questionable  whether  the  decisive  results  in  Pennsylvania  could 


1799.  PENNSYLVANIA  STATE   ELECTION.  445 

of  Pennsylvania,  whose  issue  placed  the  Republican  candidate, 
Chief  Justice  McKean,  in  the  governor's  chair  as  the  successor 
of  Mifflin,  who,  having-  served  a  third  term,  was  no  longer 
re-eligible.  McKean 'a  Federalist  competitor,  Senator  Ross, 
received  the  votes  of  the  national  administration-  Octoberlo 
ists»;  but  McKean  swept  the  State,  after  an  energetic 
canvass,  by  some  five  thousand  majority.  Native  American 
ism,  which  had  now  entered  into  the  creed  of  the  Federalists 
so  fully,  did  their  cause  the  chief  mis3hie(f;  for  the  foreign- 
born  and  naturalized  citizens,  the  Germans,  Scotch,  and 
"  wild  Irishmen,"*  all  rallied  to  the  opposite  side,  where  alone 
their  just  rights  were  promised  consideration. 

This  Pennsylvania  State  election  was  understood  to  have  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  Presidential  canvass,  in  whose 
anticipation  both  national  parties  were  already  laying  their 
plans.  New  England  appeared  almost  a  solid  column  for 
Federalism;  and  in  this  quarter,  despite  the  wishes  of  political 
leaders,  the  personal  popularity  of  Adams  was  so  great,  that 
the  attempt  to  make  his  sixty-fourth  birthday  an  occasion  of 
public  rejoicing,  proved,  in  the  leading  towns,  by  no  means 
a  feeble  demonstration ;  that  particular  season  of  Octobor  3Q 
the  year  being,  however,  quite  unfavorable  for  na 
tional  festivities  such  as  hud  attended  the  22d  of  February. 
The  South  had  always  been  the  seat  of  the  national  opposition 
party,  yet  here  the  Republican  phalanx  was  not  so  compacted 
but  that  the  present  administration,  with  Washington's  influ 
ence  combined,  might  hope  to  penetrate  it. 

Indeed,  Virginia,  the  strong  citadel  of  Jeffersoniau  ideas, 
had  been  earnestly  canvassed  for  the  Federalist's  cause  in  the 
spring  of  1799,  Washington  throwing  himself  into  the  contest 
with  the  new-born  ardor  of  a  political  champion.  To  his  eyes, 
the  salvation  of  the  country  now  seemed  to  be  bound  up  in  an 

have  been  known  at  Trenton  within  four  days  after  the  election.  In  any 
event,  the  election  news  would  not  so  well  account  for  the  secresy  and  sud 
denness  of  Adams's  course,  as  news  which  convinced  him  of  the  infidelity 
of  his  advisers.  It  is  the  method  of  deciding  and  not  the  decision  which 
need  perplex  us. 

*  The  expression  of  "  wild  Irishmen,"  at  this  time  quite  prevalent  in 
politics,  appears  to  have  been  borrowed  from  a  speech  made  by  Otis,  in 
the  preceding  Congress,  which  called  out  newspaper  comment. 


446  HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

implicit  concurrence  with  the  Cabinet  wing  of  the  adminis 
tration,  and  his  ideal  statesman,  the  tireless  Hamilton.  The 
present  French  embroilment  he  regarded  with  all  the  anxiety 
of  a  military  commander  whose  mind  had  been  poisoned  by 
others  against  the  President  and  his  policy,  though  unpos 
sessed,  as  he  admitted,  of  the  inner  secrets  of  the  government, 
and  to  whom  the  manifesto  of  his  native  State  against  the 
Alien  and  Sedition  laws  seemed  like  a  summons  to  disunion  at 
the  moment  when  our  self-preservation  against  foreign  thral 
dom  was  in  jeopardy.  Prevailing  upon  Patrick  Henry  to  run 
for  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  Washington  saw  him 
successful,  and  he  rode  ten  miles  on  election-day  to  cast  his 
ballot  for  the  Federal  candidate  for  Congress  in  his  own  dis 
trict.  Henry,  who  had  become  wealthy  by  his  speculations  in 
late  years,  was  fully  converted  ere  this  from  his  anti-Federal 
ways ;  but  the  strange  mission  of  a  Federal  proselyte  was  denied 
him,  for  his  race  was  run,  and  he  died  before  the  Virginia 
legislature  met,  months  earlier  than  the  French 
embassy  sailed,  upon  which  he  had  in  declining 
health  refused  to  serve.  Out  of  nineteen  members  elected  to 
Congress  from  Virginia,  the  Federalists  chose  eight,  including 
Henry  Lee  and  John  Marshall,  names  of  rising  renown.  In 
other  Southern  States  they  succeeded  even  better,  carrying 
seven  Congressmen  out  often  in  North  Carolina,  five  out  of  six 
in  South  Carolina,  and  the  two  of  Georgia. 

The  Southern  Federalists  thus  advanced  to  national  honors 
were,  however,  of  a  milder  type  than  those  in  New  England, 
John  Marshall  being  the  greatest  of  them  ;  and  they  supported 
the  President's  spirited  defence  of  America's  neutral  rights,  and 
were  Federalists  in  that  sense  rather  than  as  supporters  of 
proscriptive  measures  towards  aliens  and  American  citizens. 

Time  was  already  dissipating  the  first  illusions  of  patriotism, 
however,  in  this  section  as  elsewhere ;  for,  as  Jefferson  said, 
""  the  body  of  the  American  people  was  substantially  Repub 
lican,"  only  their  virtuous  feelings  had  been  played  upon.* 
The  great  Middle  States,  after  all,  where  the  oppressive  hand 
of  government  was  most  felt,  would  most  likely  determine  in  a 


*  See  Jefferson's  Works,  March  12th,  1799. 


1799.  THE   FRIES   RIOT.  447 

Presidential  contest  which  otherwise  promised  to  be  quite 
evenly  balanced.  Virginia's  hopeful  child,  Kentucky,  stood 
firmly  by  her,  supplying,  in  a  measure,  the  place  from  which 
North  Carolina  had  now  dropped  out. 

During  the  recess  of  Congress  the  Fries  riot  had  been  one 
of  the  first  popular  manifestations  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  internal  measures  of  government.     In  the 
counties  of  Northampton,  Bucks,  and  Montgomery,  in  Eastern 
Pennsylvania,  the  Germans  so  strenuously  resisted  the  officers 
who  came  to  measure  windows  preparatory  to  levying  the  new 
direct  tax  upon  their  houses,  that  warrants  issued  from  the 
Federal  District  Court,  upon  which  some  thirty  of  the  rioters 
were  apprehended.     But  an  armed  rescue  was  made  from  the 
marshal  in  the  village  of  Bethlehem  by  a  party  of  horseman, 
headed  by  one  Fries.      Disturbances  followed,   to 
which  a  proclamation  by  the  President,  followed  by 
a  slight  military  demonstration,  put  an  end.     Fries,  in  conse 
quence,  was  arrested  and  tried  on  a  charge  of  treason,  and 
upon  his  conviction,  the  first  of  the  kind  in  our  his 
tory  as  a  nation,  Pickering  and  others  urged  that  a 
stern  example   be  made  in  this   instance    by  his  execution. 
While  the  President  deliberated,  a  new  trial  was  granted  upon 
evidence  produced  by  Fries's  counsel,  which  showed  that  one 
of  the  jury  before  the  impanelling  had  expressed  his  personal 
opinion  that  Fries  ought  to  be  hung. 

The  prosecution  of  Fries  and  his  companions,  several  of 
whom  were  brought  in  guilty  of  misdemeanor,  inflamed  a 
large  German  element  of  the  Pennsylvania  population,  hith 
erto  peaceable  enough.  These  persons  resented  the  legislation 
which  had  provoked  the  whole  disturbance,  and  the  ill-treat 
ment  which,  by  exaggerated  report,  the  soldiery  sent  to  make 
the  arrests  had  bestowed  upon  the  rescuers  and  their  friends. 
The  Aurora,  and  a  German  newspaper  at  Reading,  charged  the 
officers  and  men  with  living  on  the  inhabitants  at  free  quarters, 
and  chaining  the  prisoners  so  that  their  wrists  were  worn  with 
handcuffs.  In  return  for  this  the  editors  were  thrashed  by 
young  officers  deputed  for  the  duty  ;  but  this  served  only  to 
put  the  military  men  unnecessarily  in  the  wrong.  Duane 
commenced  a  civil  suit  for  damages  against  the  son  of  Chief 


448  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Justice  McKean,  who,  as  it  appears,  was  one  of  the  casti- 
gators. 

Numerous  prosecutions   were  commenced   about  this  time 
under  the   Sedition  law,  and  the  trials  which  most 
attracted  notice  extended  into  the  summer  of  1800. 
To  the  political  sharpshooters  a  paper  so  ably  and  fearlessly, 
not  to  add  abusively,  conducted  as  the  Aurora,  must  have  been 
a  shining  mark.     This  newspaper  was  aimed  at  in  the  act ;  and, 
indeed,  its  printer  had  been   arrested  for  libelling  the  Presi 
dent,  Congress,  and  officers  of  government,  on  a 

June,  179S. 

warrant  prematurely  issued  from  the  Federal  Dis 
trict  Court  before  the  Sedition  law  actually  passed.  Picker 
ing,  who  pressed  the  President  to  banish  Duane  as 
an  alien  and  forcibly  suppress  his  newspaper,  had 
at  length  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  obnoxious  editor  regu 
larly  indicted  for  publishing  seditious  libels  against  the  gov 
ernment.  But  one  of  the  counts  against  him  relating  to  the 
charge  his  paper  made  of  persons  under  British  influence, 
Duane's  counsel  was  about  to  produce  in  his  justification  a 
curious  letter  written  by  Adams  to  Tench  Coxe  in  1792,  which 
made  the  same  charge  spleenishly  with  reference  to  Piuck- 
ney's  mission  to  England,  when  the  district  attorney,  rather 
than  embarrass  the  Chief  Executive  by  suffering  such  a  dis 
closure  of  the  document,  abandoned  the  case.  It  fared  harder 
with  Holt,  the  publisher  of  an  opposition  newspaper  at  New 
London,  Connecticut,  who,  for  a  libel  tending  to  defame  the 
President  and  discourage  enlistments,  was  sentenced  to  three 
months'  imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  $200. 

Several  of  the  Federal  judges  at  this  time,  as  well  as  certain 
who  presided  in  the  State  courts,  were  aristocratic,  and  of 
crabbed  or  insolent  manners.  Samuel  Chase,  of  Maryland, 
made  himself  solely  odious  among  the  associate  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  by  his  harsh  behavior  and  irascible,  overbear 
ing  manners  in  these  government  prosecutions.  A  capable 
lawyer,  energetic,  intrepid,  and  industrious,  Chase  was  never 
theless  too  ardent  a  partisan  by  training  and  temperament, 
and  too  domineering,  to  preside  suitably  over  such  State 
trials.  A  cowl  does  not  make  a  monk ;  and  Chase  went 
rampant  on  his  spring  assize,  trying  the  important  offences 


1800.  CHASE   HOLDS   HIS   CIRCUIT.  449 

committed  within  his  circuit  more  like  a  frocked  politician 
who  seeks  revenge  than  the  minister  of  law  and  justice.  His 
present  zeal  for  the  new  bulwarks  of  central  authority  strangely 
contrasted  with  his  earlier  anti-Federalism.  He  ranted  before 
grand  juries  as  though  in  a  mass  meeting. 

Thomas  Cooper  he  tried  with  some  show  of  fairness.  This 
English  barrister,  out  of  favor  at  home  for  his  liberal  opin 
ions,  and  "  a  learned,  ingenious,  scientific,  and  talented  mad 
cap,"*  had  persuaded  the  spotless  Priestley  and  others  op 
pressed  at  home  to  migrate  with  him  to  the  laud  of  freedom. 
He  was  now  indicted  for  an  article  appearing  in  a  Pennsyl 
vania  paper  he  had  established,  which  animadverted  upon 
the  public  acts  of  the  administration  ;  a  publication  by  no 
means  indecent,  but  which,  partly  perhaps,  because  he  chose 
indiscreetly  to  conduct  his  own  defence,  cost  him  six  months' 
imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  $400.f 

Fries,  on  a  second  trial  for  treason,  was  more  severely  dealt 
with  by  the  court ;  and  Chase,  having  so  browbeaten  the  pris 
oner's  counsel  that  they  withdrew  from  the  case,  procured  a 
verdict  of  guilty,  which,  upon  the  court's  view  of  treason  as 
distinguished  from  a  riot,  was,  perhaps,  inevitable.  Against  the 
wishes  of  his  Cabinet  and  other  prominent  men  of  his  party, 
however,  Adams  pardoned  Fries,  together  with  two  others 
convicted  of  the  same  offence,  and  by  an  act  of  clemency, 
which  did  honor  to  his  humanity,  and  occasioned  no  detri 
ment  to  the  government,  saved  from  the. gallows  the  only 
American  citizens  ever  yet  sentenced  for  treason. J 

*  Thus  John  Adams  called  him  in  later  life.  See  6  Jefferson's 
Writings,  173  ;  Adams  to  Jefferson.  Cooper's  "  Information  "  in  1796 
induced  emigration. 

f  Cooper  applied  in  vain  to  the  President  for  an  office,  and  after 
wards  became  an  active  supporter  of  McKean  in  the  State  canvass. 
The  article  in  question  charged  the  President  with  unbecoming  violence 
in  bis  official  communications.  In  defence  Cooper  relied  upon  pub 
lished  extracts  from  the  President's  addresses  ;  but  these  extracts  were 
ruled  out  as  inadmissible,  because  unauthenticated.  Cooper  had  ap 
plied  to  the  President  for  authenticated  copies,  but  the  information  was 
declined  by  the  Executive. 

J  Hamilton  and  his  set  attacked  Adams  for  pardoning  Fries,  which 
they  ascribed  unfairly  to  an  inordinate  craving  for  popularity.  Fries 
VOL.  i. —38 


450  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Passing  from  Pennsylvania  to  Virginia  Judge  Chase,  at 
Richmond,  procured  by  harsh  means  the  indictment  of  Cal- 
leuder,  who  now  resided  here,  for  certain  passages  which  ap 
peared  in  his  electioneering  pamphlet,  known  as  the  Prospect, 
Before  Us.  Calleuder  was  defended  by  three  young  men,  one 
of  them  being  the  later  distinguished  William  Wirt.  Chase 
at  this  trial  was  domineering  as  before,  so  that  Callender's 
counsel  threw  down  their  briefs,  as  those  of  Fries  had  done, 
and  walked  out  of  court.  Callender,  being  found  guilty,  was 
sentenced  to  nine  months'  imprisonment,  a  fine  of  $200,  and 
to  give  securities  for  good  behavior. 

A  more  extraordinary  opening  of  a  Presidential  canvass 
than  Chase's  circuit  of  1800  was  never  known  in  this  land 
of  free  speech.  The  trials  of  Cooper  and  Callender  were  about 
the  last  which  occurred  under  the  Sedition  Act,  of  which  there 
were  some  six  in  all.  A  number  of  prosecutions  were  insti 
gated,  however,  which  never  reached  trial.  It  is  observable 
that  in  more  than  one  instance  the  difficulty  of  alleging  the 
truth  in  defence  was  enhanced  by  the  impossibility  of  compel 
ling  the  Executive  to  lay  open  the  archives.  Cooper  and 
Lyon,  if  not  others,  were  probably  punished  by  the  Sedition 
machinery  for  other  affronts  they  had  committed  which  could 
not  be  avenged  in  the  courts.  There  were  prosecutions  in 
State  courts  under  the  common  law,  besides,  for  the  alleged 
libellous  language  of  certain  political  sheets.*  And  thus  did 
men  in  high  station  seek  to  vindicate  their  public  conduct, 
respecting  not  the  judgment  of  the  public  deliberately  formed 
so  much  as  a  muzzled  and  indiscriminate  approval  given  ex 
parte.  But  while  they  pursued  an  offending  bee  the  hive  was 
knocked  over,  and  they  were  stung  worse  than  before.  Let 
the  American  statesman  in  this  out-of-doors  government  of 
ours  pursue  his  steadfast  course,  clad  in  a  tegument  tougher 
than  bull's  hide,  or  else  trust  his  defence  to  the  press  when  the 

afterwards  opened  a  tinware  store  in  Philadelphia  and  settled  down  to 
a  respectable  life,  acquiring  a  good  fortune.  See  8  John  Adams's 
Works. 

*  Thus  Hamilton  had  Greenleaf,  in  New  York,  prosecuted  for  al 
leging  in  his  paper,  doubtless  falsely,  that  Hamilton  had  tried  to  bribe 
the  widow  of  Bache  to  discontinue  the  Aurora 


1799.  PRESIDENTIAL   CABALS.  451 

press  attacks  him,  confident  that  in  either  event  public  opin 
ion,  which  seeks  the  honest  truth,  will  sooner  or  later  do  him 
justice. 

At  whatever  point  the  authors  and  zealous  promoters  of  the 
Sedition  law  and  sedition  prosecutions  meant  that 
punishment  for  opposing  government  measures,  di 
rected  by  proper  authority,  and  trying  to  bring  the  President 
into  contempt  or  disrepute,  should  cease,  they  evidently  did 
not  consider  themselves  debarred  from  thwarting  President 
Adams  when  his  executive  course  in  foreign  affairs  interfered 
with  their  own  designs,  nor  from  combining  to  displace  him 
from  power  as  a  vain,  frantic,  and  obstinate  man,  now  that  he 
had  succeeded  in  thwarting  them.  The  Cabinet  malcontents 
stirred  up  their  friends  to  believe  with  them  that  unless 
Adams  withdrew  his  name  from  the  approaching  canvass  a 
national  defeat  of  the  party  was  inevitable.* 

The  first  secret  cabals  of  the  discontented  contemplated 
bringing  out  Washington  again  for  a  third  term.f  But  the 
magnanimous  soul  which  never  could  have  stooped  to  the  base 
uses  of  any  party  faction  for  a  party  emergency  sped  the  scene 
whose  sorest  need  of  his  service  had  vanished.  Death  sent  a 
sudden  shaft  to  the  heart  which  calumny  had  so 

,  -i     i   •  •  i  111  r\         December  14. 

long  assailed  in  vain  ;  and  scarcely  had  a  new  Con 
gress  convened  and  organized  before  the  two  houses  were  called 
upon  to  pay  their  last  public  honors  to  "  the  man,  first  iu  war, 
first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  fellow-citizens.'  | 

It  has  been  the  posthumous  distinction  of  Washington  to 
retain  that  first  place,  and  to  enjoy  the  name  and  fame  of 
patriot  father  in  each  succeeding  lustrum  of  American  history, 
besides  a  world-wide  renown  beyond  that  of  all  others  ever 
born,  reared,  and  educated  on  American  soil — a  soil  which 
was  the  sole  arena  of  his  life  achievements.  His  eulogy  was 


*  See  Wolcott,  November  4th,  1799;  Pickering,  October  22d,  1789. 

f  See  3  Sparks' s  Morris,  1 23. 

I'The  well-known  phrase  used  in  Henry  Lee's  funeral  oration,  which 
was  presently  delivered,  by  arrangement,  before  the  assembled  Congress, 
varied  but  slightly  the  language  above  quoted,  which  appears  in  the 
resolutions  offered  in  the  House  by  Marshall,  December  19th,  when  the 
news  of  Washington's  death  reached  Philadelphia. 


452  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

the  grief  of  united  millions,  who  had  gradually  become  im 
pressed  by  the  beauty  of  a  life  devoted  to  their  welfare,  and 
who  learned  at  last  to  realize  that  wherever  and  whenever 
party  issues  might  touch  him,  the  ether  Washington  breathed 
was  always  that  where  "  eternal  sunshine  settles."  France 
and  Napoleon  paid  tributes  to  his  memory  not  less  touching 
than  Great  Britain.  But  unlike  the  rising  Corsican,  Wash 
ington  stood  securely  on  his  pedestal  as  one  who  had  subserved 
the  cause  of  liberty  always,  instead  of  bringing  liberty  to  sub 
serve  his  private  ambition.  For  one  of  the  world's  genuine 
heroes,  his  fame  was  well  bestowed.  Unlike  Epaminoudas, 
he  left  behind  him  a  unity  of  States,  too  firmly  compacted  to 
perish  with  himself;  nor  did  assassination  deprive  him  of  the 
sweets  of  public  gratitude  as  it  had  the  great  Orange.  Re 
warded  in  the  declining  years  of  his  life  with  a  popular  confi 
dence  like  that  bestowed  in  a  more  primitive  age  and  a  nar 
rower  circle  upon  Timoleon  of  Syracuse,  Washington  gained 
from  posterity  a  renown  which  in  later  times  has  been  most 
happily  epitomized :  "  The  greatest  of  good  men,  and  the  best 
of  great  men."* 

The  first  session  of  the  Sixth  Congress,  which,  moreover,  was 
the  last  ever  held  at  Philadelphia,  extended  from  December 
2d  to  May  14th.  For  the  first  time  since  1793  there  assem 
bled  in  both  houses  a  decided  Federalist  majority  ;  so  heteroge 
neous  in  its  composition,  however,  that  strong  party  measures 
were  not  likely  to  be  so  readily  carried  as  in  the  preceding 
Congress. 

The  change  of  the  political  atmosphere  was  greatest  in  the 
House.  Here  New  England  Federalism  appeared  once  more, 
solid  and  unyielding,  many  of  its  prominent  exponents,  like 
Otis  and  Sewall,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Dana,  Griswold,  and 
Goodrich,  of  Connecticut,  resuming  their  seats.  Bayard,  of 
Delaware,  returned ;  also,  Harper  and  Thomas  Piuckney,  of 
South  Carolina.  But  from  the  southward  appeared  also  a 
large  number  of  new  men,  chosen,  as  we  have  seen,  because 
of  their  moderate  principles,  in  districts  hitherto  claimed  as 

*  This  pregnant  phrase  is  to  be  found  in  Edward  Everett's  Life  of 
Washington. 


1799-1800.  THE   SIXTH   CONGRESS.  453 

Republican,  and,  although  reckoned  party  Federalists,  by  no 
means  pledged  to  the  system  of  the  late  Congress ;  and  these 
looked  to  John  Marshall,  one  more  of  Virginia's  great  sons, 
whose  eminent  talents  and  virtue,  together  with  the  President's 
manifest  favor,  marked  him  as  the  administration  leader  in 
the  new  House  in  Harper's  stead.  While  Republicanism  had 
thus  balked  in  the  South,  it  pulled  harder  in  the  Middle  States, 
both  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  having  sent  an  anti-admin 
istration  majority,  and  opposition  principles  gaining  ground 
in  New  Jersey  and  Maryland.  Livingston  and  Gallatiu  were 
back;  likewise  Smith,  of  Maryland.  Upon  a  body  thus  com 
posed,  and  with  a  most  dubious  Presidential  contest  approach 
ing,  it  was  not  strange  that  the  stern  an ti- Jacobin  leaders 
looked  distrustfully. 

The  Senate,  on  the  other  hand,  though  receiving  some  fresh 
accessions,  as  in  Dexter,  of  Massachusetts,  Dayton,  the  late 
Speaker  of  the  House.  Gouverneur  Morris,  of  New  York,  Bald 
win,  of  Georgia,  and  Charles  Pinckney,  prominent  in  the 
Convention  of  1787,  and  lately  governor  of  South  Carolina 
(the  last  two  of  liberal  politics),  had  by  no  means  forfeited  the 
character  which  its  two-thirds  vote  for  the  harshest  measures 
in  the  preceding  Congress  established  ;  and  firm,  arbitrary, 
intolerant,  utterly  defiant  of  the  public  wishes,  its  grim  ma 
jority  did  the  administration  all  the  mischief  possible  by  their 
star-chamber  proceedings. 

The  present  House  organized  by  the  choice  as  Speaker  of 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  left  the  Senate 
in  order  to  resume  a  seat  in  the  popular  branch.  His  com 
petitor,  Macon,  of  North  Carolina,  a  member  of  growing 
influence  and  experience  in  Congress,  received  but  six  votes 
less. 

The  most  remarkable  of  the  new  members  of  this  Congress 
made  himself  and  his  oddities  known  to  the  country  quite 
early  in  the  course  of  the  session  ;  a  beardless  youth,  of  tawny 
complexion,  with  a  piping  voice,  a  small  head,  black  and 
piercing  eyes,  and  a  figure  which,  because  of  legs  proportioned 
to  the  body  like  a  pair  of  tongs,  looked  slight  while  he  was 
seated,  but  upon  rising  drew  up  to  a  stature  of  nearly  six  feet. 
This  was  a  Virginian  and  a  member  of  the  House,  John  Ran- 


454  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

dolph  of  Roanoke,  as  he  was  wont  proudly  to  style  himself; 
a  politician  hitherto  unknown  to  fame,  but  destined  to  enliven 
the  proceedings  of  Congress  for  the  next  quarter  of  a  century 
by  his  eccentric  manners  and  strangely  fascinating  style  of 
oratory.  In  public  speaking  Randolph  excelled  in  stinging 
and  saucy  invective,  which  not  unfrequently  became  person 
ally  insulting  to  the  last  degree,  for  he  was  a  respecter  neither 
of  man  nor  place,  but  at  times  he  seemed  borne  upward  in  a 
wild  strain  of  passionate  eloquence.  His  style  was  entirely 
unique,  bespeaking  a  nimble  wit  and  the  more  solid  accom 
plishments  of  a  scholar,  and  of  its  kind  unrivalled  at  the 
Federal  Capital ;  the  manner  of  delivery,  moreover,  was 
heightened  by  the  speaker's  masterly  contempt  of  proprieties, 
and  his  strange  voice  and  looks,  together  with  a  peculiar  ges 
ture  of  pointing  a  long,  bony  finger  at  the  object  of  his  sar 
casm.  Aiming  at  this  time  to  become  the  Republican  leader 
on  the  floor  of  the  House,  though  one  of  the  youngest  mem 
bers,  he  proved  in  his  long  career  exceedingly  freakish  as  a 
politician,  and  in  the  main  true  to  no  party  but  himself. 
With  a  pedigree  which,  as  he  boasted,  came  from  Pocahontas, 
he  seems  to  have  taken  a  touch  of  Indian  treachery  and  dark 
reticence  of  purpose  into  his  nature;  and,  left  as  he  was  an 
orphan  while  young,  having  no  strong  domestic  ties,  inherit 
ing  a  plantation  which  he  had  brought  to  a  high  state  of  per 
fection  by  his  own  prudence  and  good  management,  he  al 
ready  felt  so  sovereign  and  selfish  an  independence  that,  dis 
daining  peers  and  aristocratic  acquaintance,  he  condescended 
to  a  patronizing  but  not  ungentle  interest  in  American  democ 
racy. 

The  first  noticeable  appearance  of  this  shrill  boy,  as  the 

stranger  appeared  to  be,  was  in  a  House  debate, 

where  he  astonished  decorum  by  styling  our  new 

army  and  navy  officers  with  sublime  effrontery  as  "a  handful 

of  ragamuffins"  who  were  eating   up  the  people's  substance 

under  pretence  of  protecting  them  from   their  foreign  foes; 

which  epithet  getting  currency,  some  young  officers  showed 

their  displeasure  soon  after  at  a  theatre  where  he  attended  by 

jostling  him  and  making  unflattering  allusions,  loud  enough 

for  him  to  hear.     Randolph  sent  a  letter  to  the  President,  im- 


1799-1800.  RANDOLPH   OF   ROANOKE.  455 

periously  demanding  that  this  insult  to  the  independence  of 
the  legislature  be  redressed  by  the  Executive;  but  Adams  very 
sagaciously  referred  the  communication  at  once  to  the  House, 
that  this  body  might  judge  of  its  own  breach  of  privilege; 
and  much  to  Randolph's  discomfiture,  who  was  thus  compelled 
to  see  an  investigation  commenced  which  elicited  no  testimony 
of  consequence,  the  trivial  affair  ended  by  the  acceptance  of  a 
report  that  further  action  was  unnecessary.*  Mortified  as  he 
felt,  the  whimsical  phrase  and  the  encounter  together,  which 
were  widely  published,  made  Randolph  from  that  hour  a  na 
tional  sensation. 

Long  as  the  present  session  lasted,  the  business  transacted 
by  actual  concurrence  of  the  two  Houses  was  quite  scanty. 
The  only  recommendations  of 'consequence  contained  in  the 
President's  message  were:  (1),  To  extend  the  Federal  judiciary 
system  ;  (2),  to  persevere  in  the  system  of  national  defences 
already  begun. 

(1.)  As  to  the  first  point,  it  was  becoming  patent,  and  the 
great  State  trials,  which  we  have  already  described,  were  soon 
to  confirm  the  conclusion,  that  the  Federal  party,  as  such, 
meant  to  stand  upon  the  encroaching  policy,  so  offensive  to 
States  and  the  local  courts,  of  using  the  judicial  machinery 
of  the  Union  to  the  utmost,  for  compelling  general  submission 
and  punishing  political  offenders.  The  claim,  by  which  the 
Federalists  had  made  their  boldest  push  for  this  judicial  ex 
tension  in  matters  of  public  wrong,  namely,  that  Federal 
courts  had  a  common-law  jurisdiction  in  criminal  offences 
under  the  Federal  Constitution,  Jefferson  and  the  Republi 
cans,  as  we  have  seen,  stoutly  resisted ;  contending,  as  Edmund 
Randolph  had  taken  up  the  pen  to  demonstrate,  that  the  State 
courts  alone  (to  which  the  hot  heads  of  the  party  in  power 
dared  not  intrust  their  prosecutions),  could  try  libel,  slander, 
and  the  like  common-law  offences.  That  Federalist  claim, 
since  exploded  in  the  highest  United  States  tribunal,  whose 
mischief  far  outworked  so  temporary  a  measure  as  the  Sedi 
tion  law,  which  by  its  own  terms  necessarily  expired  in  another 
year,  was  successfully  used  by  the  ultra-Federalists 
to  counterwork  Marshall  and  the  moderate  South- 


*  Annals  of  Congress,  1800. 


456  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

ern  wing,  in  the  laudable  effort  to  procure  a  repeal  of  the 
Sedition  Act,  which  so  handicapped  the  party.  Once  more  the 
Federalists  of  Congress  elected  to  stand  inflexibly  by  their 
Sedition  law,  the  Northern  faction  indicating  a  purpose  fur 
thermore,  that  the  common  law  should  perpetuate  the  main 
offence  and  the  jurisdiction,  after  the  Sedition  Act  expired. 

Nothing  was  procured  at  this  session  for  extending  directly 
the  system  of  the  United  States  judiciary;  but  a  Bankrupt 
Act  passed,  which  promised  a  new  occasion  for  taking  such  a 
step,  by  aggrandizing  the  Federal  business.  This  first  of 
Federal  bankrupt  acts,  like  a  second  law  for  discharging  poor 
debtors  from  imprisonment,*  alleviated  the  distressed  mer 
chants  and  speculators  who  had  been  ruined  in  the  late  panic. 
Modelled  after  the  English  bankrupt  laws,  the  present  act 
extended  only  to  merchants  and  traders  ;  it  passed  Congress 
only  by  a  close  vote ;  and  proving  a  mere  sponge  for  enabling 
debtors  to  wipe  out  at  the  creditors'  cost  what  they  owed  them, 
the  statute  was  repealed  in  less  than  the  five  years'  time,  to 
which  its  duration  was  expressly  limited  by  its  own  terms.f 
We  shall  see  that  the  President's  general  recommendation 
was  more  fully  carried  out  at  the  next  session. 

(2.)  Perseverance  in  the  system  of  national  defence,  the 
President's  next  suggestion,  was  not  unwise  so  long  as  there  was 
apprehension  that  the  new  negotiation  with  France  might  fail. 
But  the  longer  this  session  lasted,  the  less  likely  appeared  the 
likelihood  of  such  a  contingency;  and  of  the  lavish  cost  of 
these  warlike  indulgences  Congress  had  meantime  received  a 
salutary  reminder,  upon  assembling.  For  the  statement  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  showed  that  the  customs  reve 
nue  for  the  past  fiscal  year  had  fallen  off  nearly  $1,000,000, 
and  that  an  expenditure,  exceeding  the  standing  revenue  of 
the  government  by  $5,000,000  annually,  would  have  to  be  in 
curred  in  order  to  keep  up  the  government  establishment  to  the 

*  Act  January  6th,  1800. 

f  This  Bankrupt  Act  of  April  4th,  1800,  passed  the  House  by  the 
Speaker's  casting  vote.  It  was  repealed  by  act  December  19th,  1803, 
and  no  other  general  bankrupt  act  passed  until  1841,  notwithstanding 
the  undoubted  right  of  Congress  to  supersede  State  insolvent  systems  in 
this  manner. 


1799-1800.  NATIONAL   DEFENCE.  457 

present  standard.  With  a  direct  tax  yet  to  come,  with  the 
revenues  from  internal  sources  and  customs  straining  so  hard, 
and  loans  contracted  already  at  high  rates  of  interest,  Congress 
might  well  reconsider  the  extent  of  the  war  emergency. 

It  was  in  vain,  therefore,  that  speakers  on  the  Federal  side 
sought  to  persuade  Congress  that  this  French  mania  was 
eating  into  the  vitals  of  America,  whose  liberty  might  soon  be 
lost  like  that  of  Holland  and  Switzerland  ;  that  Napoleon's 
invasion  of  Egypt  would  be  followed  by  an  invasion  of  the 
United  States  unless  resistance  was  sturdy.  By  a  combination 
of  the  more  moderate  Federalists  and  the  Republicans,  a  sus 
pension  of  army  enlistments  was  carried  in  February,*  and  on 
the  last  day  of  the  session,  so  favorable  were  the  accounts  from 
abroad,  the  President  approved  an  act  which  permitted  him 
to  discharge  the  officers  and  men  of  the  increased  forces  at  an 
early  clate.f  The  prospect  broadened  of  an  amicable  adjust 
ment  with  France;  and  while  the  favor  of  the  President  and 
their  own  gallant  exploits  protected  the  navy  from  obloquy, 
to  Hamilton's  grand  police,  with  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
for  their  commendation,  every  day's  rations  was  grudgingly 
allowed,  after  the  decease  of  Washington  deprived  the  forces 
of  their  trusted  commander.  By  putting  off  the  building  of 
the  74's,  and  stopping  enlistments,  the  loan  now  required,  was 
reduced  to  $3,500,000,  a  sum  which  the  President  was  author 
ized  to  borrow  ;  and  to  meet  the  interest  on  this  and  the  pre 
vious  loan,  additional  duties  were  laid  on  certain  articles. J 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was,  by  a  separate  act,  required 
to  lay  estimates  of  the  revenue  before  Congress  at  the  com 
mencement  of  each  session. § 

The  events  of  the  past  summer  had  revived  somewhat  the 
earlier  animosity  of  our  citizens  against  Great  Britain.  It 
happened  that  Thomas  Nash,  a  boatswain  concerned  in  a  mu 
tiny  on  board  the  British  frigate  Hermione,  who  had  appeared 
in  Charleston  under  the  name  of  Kobbins,  was  arrested  at  the 
instance  of  the  British  consul,  and  by  the  President's  order 
given  up  to  the  British  government  after  proof  was  furnished 


Act  February  20th,  1800.  f  Act  May  14th,  1800. 

Act  May  7th,  1800.  §  Act  May  10th,  1800. 

YOL.  i.— 39 


458  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

of  his  identity,  under  the  extradition  clause  of  the  British 
treaty.  Nash  had  produced  papers  issued  to  one  Robbins, 
and  claimed  that  he  was  that  person,  and  in  fact  an  American 
citizen,  born  in  Daubury,  Connecticut,  and  that  two  years  pre 
vious  he  had  been  impressed  into  the  British  navy.  Notwith 
standing  his  assertions,  he  was  extradited,  and,  upon  the  sen 
tence  of  a  British  court-martial,  afterwards  hanged  at  Halifax. 
Many  believed  Nash's  story,  and  accordingly  no  little  popular 
displeasure  was  manifested  against  the  President  for  surrender 
ing  an  American  citizen  to  suffer  death  at  the  hands  of  a  foreign 
government  for  engaging  in  a  mutiny  on  a  vessel  into  which 
he  had  been  impressed.  Notwithstanding  it  appeared  by 
Nash's  dying  confession  that  he  was  Irish  born,  a  handle  was 
made  of  the  case  in  Congress,  and  particularly  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  President  had  interfered  with  the  judiciary  for 
the  man's  extradition  ;  but  after  an  extended  debate  at  this 
session,  in  the  course  of  which  Marshall  vindicated  with  con 
summate  ability  the  conduct  of  the  Executive,  the  whole  sub 
ject  vvas  suffered  to  drop.* 

The  prosecution  of  Isaac  Williams,  of  Connecticut,  whose 
trial  took  place  before  Chief  Justice  Ellsworth,  on 

1799 

the  last  circuit  he  held  previous  to  departing  on  the 
French  mission  and  resigning  judicial  station,  and  who  was 
convicted  and  sentenced  to  fine  and  imprisonment,  under  that 
clause  of  the  Jay  treaty  which  forbade  privateering  by  Amer 
ican  citizens  against  British  commerce,  increased  the  ill-feeling 
of  this  hour. 

As  a  final  humiliation  of  the  United  States  under  the  pro 
visions  of  Jay's  treaty,  the  claims  commissioners  under  this 
treaty  suspended  about  the  time  our  new  envoys  sailed  for 
France.  While  the  London  commission  had  paid  awards 
for  American  spoliations,  amounting  already  to  about  half  a 
million  of  dollars,  that  in  Philadelphia,  which  was  to  consider 
the  British  debts,  was  about  to  rule  in  such  a  manner  as  must 
have  swamped  the  United  States  with  Tory  claims.  The 
American  commissioners  withdrew  from  the  latter  tribunal, 
and  the  British  commissioners  at  London  promptly  following 

*  Annals  of  Congress,  February  March,  1800, 


1799-1800.  BRITISH   ANNOYANCES.  459 

their  example,  a  complete  stoppage  of  the  spoliation  awards 
was  threatened.  Ultimately  the  gross  sum  of  $2,664,000  was 
accepted  from  the  United  States  in  full  discharge  of  all  obli 
gations  incurred  on  the  score  of  British  debts;  an  arrangement 
amicably  concluded  at  the  close  of  the  present  administration 
and  executed  during  the  next,*  but  which,  nevertheless,  tended 
to  confirm  the  prevalent  opinion  that  British  diplomacy  and 
an  ostentatious  yielding  on  one  point  to  gain  unexpectedly  in 
another,  had  been  more  than  a  match  for  the  accommodating 
and  credulous  Jay. 

Much  earlier  than  this  an  outrage  had  been  inflicted  by 
British  officers,  which  our  President  resented  with 
becoming  spirit.  An  American  war  vessel,  the 
Baltimore,  while  acting  as  convoy,  was  overhauled  by  a 
cruiser  of  the  English  navy.  The  English  commodore  sent  an 
officer  on  board  threatening  to  take  off  every  seaman  who  was 
a  British  subject  and  could  not  produce  a  protection.  Against 
the  protest  of  the  captain  of  the  Baltimore  that  the  American 
flag  ought  to  be  a  sufficient  protection  to  an  American  war  vessel, 
fifty-five  men  were  transferred  to  the  British  ship  for  examina 
tion,  five  of  whom  the  commodore  retained  as  British  subjects. 
Upon  receiving  the  news  Adams  sent  a  circular  order  to  our 
navy  commanders  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  such  insults. 
"  Do  not  submit  to  search,"  was  his  direction  ;  "  but  resist  to 
the  utmost,  and  if  overpowered  by  superior  force,  strike  your 
flag  and  yield  your  vessel  ;  but  not  the  men  without  the  ves 
sel."  The  British  government,  upon  representation  of  the 
facts,  disavowed  the  action  of  the  commodore,  and  ordered 
that  American  war  vessels  should  be  courteously  treated.  The 
insolence  of  British  naval  commanders  cruising  about  the 
West  Indies,  whose  pride  was  now  elated  by  the  news  of  Nel 
son's  splendid  victories,  and  who  might  still  detain  and  search 
American  merchantmen  at  pleasure,  was  not,  however,  easily 
restrained. 

Important  action  was  taken  at  the  present  session  of  Con 
gress  towards  developing  the  great  West,  whose  set 
tlement  was  rapidly  increasing,  as  the  approaching 

*  See  Act  May  3d,  1802. 


460  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

census*  would  show,  now  that  Indian  hostilities  were  feared  no 
longer.  The  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  was  separated 
into  two  distinct  portions,  of  which  the  western,  commencing 
with  a  line  drawn  at  the  Ohio  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Ken 
tucky  River,  was  to  be  known  as  the  Indiana  Territory,  and 
governed  accordingly  ;  while  that  of  Ohio  constituted  the  por 
tion  east  of  this  boundary.  To  a  fertile  and  populous  tract  in 
the  northeast  corner  of  the  Ohio  Territory,  known  as  the 
"  Connecticut  Reserve,"  which  the  State  of  Connecticut  had 
formerly  sold  to  a  speculating  company,  the  title  was  now  con 
firmed  for  the  benefit  of  the  present  settlers,  and  provision 
made  to  procure  the  final  extinction  of  all  claims  on  the  part 
of  that  State  to  a  strip  of  land  which  lay  along  the  south 
western  boundary  of  New  York.f  All  this  legislation  pre 
pared  the  way  for  admitting,  at  no  distant  period,  Ohio,  as  the 
first  of  the  flourishing  States  ever  carved  out  of  the  Northwest 
Territory.  William  Henry  Harrison,  a  future  President  of 
the  United  States,  sat  in  this  Congress  as  the  delegate  from 
the  Northwest  Territory ;  and  under  the  above  act  he  was 
presently  appointed  Governor  of  Indiana. 

Great  complaints  having  been  made  at  this  session  of  ex 
tortion,  oppression,  and  maladministration  on  the  part  of  Gov 
ernor  Winthrop  Sargent,  of  the  Mississippi  Territory,  com 
plaints  whose  investigation  was  ordered  by  the  House,J  the 
public  conviction  spread  that  this  close  blending  of  executive, 
legislative,  and  judicial  authority,  to  be  exercised  by  some 
three  or  four  individuals,  appointed  from  the  States  at  large, 
who  could  have  but  little  in  common  with  the  territorial  set 
tlers  they  ruled,  was  bad  in  theory  and  practice  ;  and  accord 
ingly,  while  outraged  Mississippi  was  allowed  an  immediate 
Territorial  Assembly, §  the  privilege  was  in  like  manner  con 
ceded  as  a  feature  of  the  Indiana  act,  that  there  should  be  a 

*  See  act  February  28th,  1800. 

f  Act  April  28th,  1800. 

J  A  report  was  made  somewhat  palliative  in  terms,  but  at  the  next 
session  the  House  refused,  March  3d,  1801,  to  accept  the  committee 
action  as  final,  and  the  whole  subject  went  over. 

$  Act  May  10th,  1800.  Georgia  claims  were  to  be  adjusted  in  the 
Mississippi  Territory. 


1800.  TERRITORIES   AND   PUBLIC   LANDS.  461 

Territorial  Assembly  established  whenever  a  majority  of  the 
freeholders  desired  it. 

To  Harrison's  efforts  it  was  largely  owing  that  an  important 
act  passed  relative  to  public  land  sales,  which  in  reality  took 
the  first  step  towards  the  direct  dealing  between  government 
and  individual  settlers,  which  has  since  proved  so  mutually 
beneficial.  This  act  provided  that  four  land  offices  should  be 
opened  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  each  with  its  register  and 
receiver.  The  vacant  lands  belonging  to  the  United  States, 
subdivided  into  half  sections  of  320  acres  each,  might,  if  not 
sold  after  having  been  put  up  at  public  auction,  be  entered  at 
any  time  by  individuals  at  a  price  not  less  than  two  dollars  an 
acre,  three-fourths  of  the  purchase-money  being  payable  in  in 
stalments  to  extend  over  four  years.  Pre-emption  was  allowed 
to  the  builders  of  mills,  and  leases  might  be  made  of  govern 
ment  reservations.*  The  former  system  of  selling  only  in 
large  tracts  on  credit,  and  at  remote  points,  had  fostered  the 
late  disastrous  speculations,  while  utterly  failing  as  a  pro 
ductive  source  of  revenue  to  the  Federal  government.  Under 
the  first  public  land  act  of  1796  public  lands  were  obtainable 
at  two  Western  points,  Pittsburg  and  Cincinnati,  but  only  at 
auction,  and  in  tracts  of  not  less  than  640  acres.  The  direct 
revenue  from  laud  sales  under  that  act  amounted  to  scarcely 
$100,000  in  four  years;  far  less,  in  fact,  than  was  derived 
under  the  new7  system  during  the  single  year  ISOl.f 

In  contemplation  of  an  exciting  Presidential  struggle,  both 
the  dominant  political  parties  drew  the  lines  closely.  So 
tenaciously  did  each  grasp  its  own  advantages  in  the  several 
States,  that  nearly  every  legislature  in  the  Union  had  resolved 
to  choose  the  Presidential  electors  this  time,  instead  of  trusting 
to  the  uncertainties  of  a  popular  choice,  whether  by  general 
or  district  ticket.  The  Republicans  followed  Federal  example 
in  this  truly  undemocratic  procedure;  having  made  a  futile 
attempt  in  Congress,  nevertheless,  to  initiate  a  constitutional 
amendment  which  would  establish  for  the  future  a  strict  system 
of  election  by  districts  throughout  the  United  States.  "All 

*  Act  May  10th,  1800. 

f  See  4  Hildreth  ;  act  May  18th,  179G. 


462  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

agree,"  says  Jefferson,  "that  an  election  by  districts  would  be 
best,  if  it  could  be  general,  but  while  ten  States  choose  either 
by  their  legislatures  or  by  a  general  ticket,  it  is  folly  for  the 
other  six  not  to  do  it."* 

There  would  have  been  more  popular  opposition  to  this 
legislative  appropriation  of  electoral  .votes,  had  it  not  fteen 
commonly  recognized  that  the  Federalist  votes  for  the  Presi 
dency  would  be  cast  for  John  Adams,  and  the  Republican  for 
Thomas  Jefferson.  The  latter,  with  the  fullest  Confidence  of 
his  own  party,  had  no  competitor  in  the  ranks;  but  against 
Adams  the  Cabinet  clique,  Pickering,  Wolcott,  and  McHenry, 
had  been  intriguing,  as  we  have  seen,  with  Hamilton  and 
others  of  the  discontented  ultra  Federalists,  so  as  to  have  him 
dropped.  With  the  rank  and  file  of  his  party,  who  knew 
little  of  the  bitter  dissent  which  went  on,  and  highly  approved 
his  foreign  policy,  Adams  was  by  all  odds  the  strongest  can 
didate;  and  manifesting,  as  he  did,  the  determination  to 
stand  for  a  second  term,  as  the  practice  of  this  period  highly 
favored,  any  open  breach  with  his  supporters  was  sure  to  ruin 
the  party.  The  expedient  of  secretly  superseding  Adams  by 
managing  to  have  the  electoral  vote  for  the  two  undesignated 
candidates  gravitate  towards  his  associate,  a  scheme  which 
Hamilton,  we  have  seen,  had  broached  at  the  election  four 
years  before,  was  the  only  one  which  seemed  at  all  feasible 
after  Washington's  death.  And  the  second  candidate  to 
whom  the  intriguers  had  turned,  as  the  most  available  for  cap 
turing  more  votes  than  Adams,  and  a  tractable  party  man 
too,  was  as  before,  a  Southerner,  and  a  Pinckney — not  Thomas 
Piuckney  again,  but  Charles  C.  Pinckney,  lately  prominent, 
as  we  have  seen,  on  the  French  mission,  and  as  the  man  whom 
Washington  selected  for  the  major-general  next  in  rank  to 
Hamilton. 

With  the  New  England  electoral  colleges  about  evenly 
balanced,  so  far  as  legislative  majorities  went,  by  these  of  the 
Southern  Republican  States — since  Maryland  and  North 
Carolina  intended  to  choose  popular  electors  by  district  ticket, 

*  See  Annals  of  Congress,  amendment  proposed  by  Nicholas  ;  Jeffer 
son's  Writings,  1800.  In  at  least  twelve  States  the  legislatures  chose 
electors  for  the  present  election. 


1800.         ELECTORAL  PREPARATIONS.          4G3 

the  effect  of  which  would  probably  be  to  well-nigh  neutralize 
the  electoral  vote  of  each  State,  so  closely  was  the  local  senti 
ment  divided — both  Federalists  and  Republicans  watched 
with  especial  anxiety  the  course  of  events  in  Pennsylvania, 
New  York,  and  New  Jersey,  and  the  two  former  more  par 
ticularly. 

In  Pennsylvania,  the  winter's  session' of  the  legislature  had 
been  a  stormy  one.  The  popular  choice  gave  the  State  in 
McKeau  a  Republican  governor ;  but  in  the  State  legislature 
the  Federalists  controlled  the  Senate,  which  branch  refused  to 
concur  with  the  House  and  renew  the  old  law7,  which  had  now 
expired,  for  a  choice  of  the  Pennsylvania  electors  by  general 
ticket.  Deprived  of  this  means  for  securing  Fe 
electoral  vote  to  the  Republican  party,  Governor 
resolved  upon  convoking  the  next  legislature  to  meet  immedi 
ately  after  the  election  in  the  fall ;  hoping  that  by  this  time  a 
decided  Republican  majority  would  be  found  in  the  two  houses, 
with  opportunity,  moreover,  for  enabling  that  body  to  cast 
Pennsylvania's  electoral  vote  with  due  expedition.  But  even 
if  seasonably  assembled,  difficulties  might  yet  arise  as  to 
whether  the  two  bodies  should  then  vote  by  heads  or  houses, 
and  thus  the  day  for  casting  an  electoral  vote  might  pass  by. 
Ross,  the  defeated  candidate  against  McKean  for  governor, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate,  now  brought 
forward  in  Congress  an  astounding  proposition, 

,  .    ,       ,  .  .in  i  Fobruary  14. 

which  his  colleagues  favorably  considered,  and 
whose  obvious  design  was,  as  a  final  checkmate,  to  throw  out 
Pennsylvania's  electoral  vote  in  a  contingency  rendering  its 
count  essential  to  establish  Jefferson's  election,  by  making  the 
most  of  technical  objections.  Upon  the  pretext  of  providing 
against  disputed  presidential  elections  in  general,  a  grand 
committee  was  to  be  appointed  by  ballot  from  the  two  houses 
of  Congress,  and  sitting  with  closed  doors,  to  examine  all  the 
electoral  votes  submitted  at  the  next  election,  and  decide  ab 
solutely  what  States  to  admit  and  what  to  reject.  This  bill 
passed  the  Senate  ;  but  upon  a  disagreement  of  the  two  houses 
the  measure  eventually  failed.* 

*  See   Annals   of    Congress ;    Contemporary    Writings.      Uinghnni, 
Ross's  colleague  in  the  Senate,  would  have  made  the  power  of  this  com- 


464  HISTOEY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

While  the  Senate  was  considering  this  move  towards  remit 
ting  the  Union   to  a  secret  council,  a  copy  of  the 

February  19.  _.    °    .  ...  .  ,.  ,       ,    .         .  f  , 

Ross  bill  was  published  in  the  Aurora,  with  an  ex 
posure  of  its  inner  purpose  to  frustrate  the  popular  will  of 
Pennsylvania.     Duane,  the  editor,  was  ordered  in 

March.  J  ,      _  .      '  _     .       ' 

consequence  before  the  bar  or  the  benate  to  answer 
to  this  publication  as  "  false,  defamatory,  scandalous,  and  ma 
licious,"  and  "  a  high  breach  of  the  privileges  of  the  Senate." 
After  having  been  arraigned,  Duane  refused,  upon  the  advice 
of  his  counsel,  to  appear  or  defend  to  the  merits  of  the  case, 
inasmuch  as  he  was  denied  the  right  to  demur  to  the  constitu 
tionality  of  these  arbitrary  proceedings.  Incensed  at  his  con 
tumacy,  which  was  couched  in  terms  by  no  means  respectful, 
the  Senate  ordered  Duane's  arrest ;  but  he  eluded  the  sergeant- 
at-arms  until  the  session  had  ended.* 

While  the  Federalists  could  hope  for  nothing  better  from 
Pennsylvania  at  the  utmost  than  rendering  the  electoral  vote 
of  that  State  nugatory  by  holding  one  branch  of  the  Legisla 
ture  to  a  stubborn  course,  they  looked  to  New  York,  where  a 
new  legislature,  elected  in  the  spring,  would  cast  twelve  solid 
electoral  votes  eirher  for  Adams  and  Jefferson,  so  as  probably 
to  turn  the  scales.  All  was  seen  to  depend  on  the  success  of 
the  city  election  of  New  York,  which  would  carry  twelve 
members  into  the  Assembly  of  this  legislature,  enough  to  estab 
lish  its  political  complexion.  The  city  election  was  canvassed 
by  Hamilton  on  the  one  side  and  Burr  on  the  other.  The 
latter,  who  showed  great  dexterity  as  a  political  manager, 
procured  a  ticket  as  acceptable  as  possible  to  all  shades  of  the 
opposition  ;  Clinton,  with  some  difficulty,  was  induced  to  per 
mit  his  name  to  stand  at  the  head  ;  and  the  names  of  General 

mittee  less  extensive,  but  the  Senate  Federalists  voted  his  amendment 
down,  as  well  as  a  further  proposition  to  strike  out  the  dangerous  feature 
of  sitting  with  closed  doors.  Marshall,  in  the  House,  denounced  this 
Senate  measure  as  unconstitutional.  But  while  he  proposed  no  more 
than  controlling  the  decision  of  the  grand  committee  by  the  concurrent 
votes  of  the  two  houses,  the  House  committee  were  for  going  further, 
and  requiring  that  votes  returned  by  the  States  should  be  counted  unless 
rejected  by  a  concurrent  vote  of  both  houses. 

*  On  the  last  day  of  the  session,  the  offended  Senate,  by  resolve  re 
quested  the  Executive  to  have  Duane  prosecuted  for  libel. 


1800.  NEW   YORK    ELECTION.  405 

Gates  and  Brockholst   Livingston  were  among: 

11        rr.i  •     /--n-  •    i  •     i  April  30-May  1. 

those  added,     Ihis  Clinton  ticket  was  carried  at 
the  polls. 

Hamilton  had  been  gloomy  all  the  winter  under  the  crush 
ing  weight  of  military  disappointments  and  the  calumny  of 
enemies,  of  tenfold  weight  since  the  loss  of  his  "essential  Aegis." 
He  had  before  him  the  dilemma  of  risking  schism  by  a  change 
of  party  candidates,  or  supporting  a  personal  enemy.  He  la 
mented  that  party  deference  to  the  popular  wish  which  had 
caused  the  abandonment  of  a  standing  army  and  was  likely  fur 
ther  to  prevent  "the  erection  of  additional  buttresses  to  the  Con 
stitution,  a  fabric,"  he  writes,  "  which  can  hardly  be  stationary, 
and  which  will  retrograde  if  it  cannot  be  made  to  advance."* 

The  Federal  disaster  in  New  York  had  caused  him  to  re 
volve  desperate  expedients  for  carrying  the  Presidential  elec 
tion.  "  To  support  Adams  and  Pinckney  equally,"  he  writes 
to  his  friends  in  Congress,  "  is  the  only  thing  that  can  possibly 
save  us  from  the  fangs  of  Jefferson  ;"  nor  ought  Congress,  he 
added,  to  adjourn  without  a  solemn  concert  to  pursue  this 
course.f 

One  daring  scheme  Hamilton  thought  worthy  of  propound 
ing  to  Governor  Jay  in  the  last  hope  of  thus  circumscribing 
the  newly  elected  legislature  of  that  State,  which  could  not 
possibly  meet  before  July  ;  and  this  was  to  convoke  the  old 
legislature  in  extra  session,  while  nearly  two  mouths  of  the 
present  political  year  remained,  and  prevail  upon  it  to  pass  a 
bill  for  making  a  district  choice  of  Presidential  electors  by 
the  people.  By  this  means  the  next  legislature  might  be 
hampered  and  restrained  as  to  pursuing  the  course  hitherto 
anticipated.  But  upon  this  letter,  which  insidiously  argued 
that  this  would  be  taking  a  legal  and  constitutional  step  to 
prevent  "  an  atheist  in  religion  and  a  fanatic  in  politics  "  from 
becoming  President,  Jay  indorsed  the  words:  "Proposing  a 
measure  for  party  purposes  which  I  think  it  would  not  become 
me  to  adopt."J 

John   Adams  meanwhile  had   resolved  upon  the  turn  of 

*  Hamilton's  Works,  December,  171)9 ;  May,  1800. 

f  Hamilton's  Works,  May,  1800. 

j  Hamilton's  Writings,  May  7th,  1800  ;  John  Jay's  Life. 


4G6  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

events  to  warm  no  longer  his  nest  of  viperous  advisers,  The 
alarming  news  of  the  New  York  city  election,  which  reached 
the  Federalists  at  Philadelphia  some  ten  days  before  Con 
gress  adjourned,  assured  the  President  that  longer  deference 
to  Hamilton  and  the  ultra  Federalists  at  the  eastward  was 
unprofitable,  since  his  main  chance  for  ^re-election  lay  now 
in  strengthening  himself  with  the  South.  Finding,  too,  as  we 
may  fairly' conceive,  that  the  "double  chance"  manoeuvre 
was  once  more  being  cogitated  by  that  same  faction,  to  his 
injury,  and  determined  to  have  men  in  the  Cabinet  whom  he 
could  trust  during  his  absence  in  the  approaching  recess,  he 
began  the  long-needed  reconstruction  of  his  Cabinet  which 
prudence  had  delayed.  Commencing  boisterously 
with  the  Secretary  of  War,  he  forced  McHenry  to 
resign;  and  next  proceeding  to  Pickering,  by  the  calmer 
medium  of  a  correspondence,  he  drew  from  that 
stern  and  stubborn  official,  a  reply  which  indeed 
betrayed  nervousness  at  the  prospect  of  being  cast  in  poverty 
upon  the  world  again,  and  yet  with  defiant  irony  declined  to 
tender  his  resignation  ;  whereupon  Adams  showed  his  own 
earnestness  by  promptly  removing  him.  John  Marshall  was 
appointed  in  Pickering's  stead,  and  Samuel  Dexter,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  as  Secretary  of  War ;  both  men  of  broad  compass 
and  national  fame,  of  whom  the  latter  had  lately  given  a  con 
spicuous  proof  of  fidelity.  At  this  point  the  President  ceased 
to  dissipate  his  "legacy  of  secretaries "  from  Washington; 
for  he  retained  Wolcott,  whose  more  covert  treachery,  so  def 
erential  was  he  as  compared  with  that  storm-petrel,  the  late 
Secretary  of  State,  Adams  seems  never  to  have  suspected.* 

*  See  John  Adams's  Works,  May,  1800,  and  notes  by  Charles  Francis 
Adams;  Hamilton's  Works.  Dexter,  then  a  Senator,  appears,  just 
before  Mdlenry's  removal,  to  have  been  sounded  by  Sedgwick  upon 
the  subject  of  Hamilton's  proposal,  namely,  that  Adams  and  Pinckney 
should  have  the  equal  chance  in  the  electoral  colleges.  He  was  found 
unfavorable  to  the  scheme;  regarding  it  as  in  fact  an  act  of  bad  faith 
which,  if  pursued,  would  work  the  ruin  of  the  Federal  party.  See  Sedg 
wick  to  Hamilton,  May  7th,  Hamilton's  Works.  As  Adams  stormed 
so  violently  at  McIIenry  upon  asking  his  removal,  as  though  irritated 
over  some  revelation,  and  soon  after  put  Dexter  into  his  place,  it  might 
be  that  directly  or  indirectly  the  substance  of  this  scheme,  concerning 


1800.  THE   DISPLACED   SECRETARIES.  467 

These  Cabinet  changes  were  of  deckled  gain  in  promoting  the 
operations  of  the  government,  and  well  satisfied  the  country. 
But  the  President  had  provoked  revengeful  foes.  Driven 
from  their  covert,  the  displaced  secretaries  now  contrived  with 
Hamilton  more  boldly  for  superseding  Adams.  McHenry  was 
a  man  of  fortune.  But  to  Pickering  the  removal  from  office 
necessitated  his  return  to  the  Wyoming  wilderness  and  his 
unwelcome  plough  ;  fortunately,  however,  wealthy  friends  and 
connections  in  Massachusetts  soon  intervened,  who,  by  organ 
izing  a  joint  company,  presently  took  his  unprofitable  lauds 
into  their  own  possession  and  enabled  him  to  remove  with  his 
large  family  to  Massachusetts,  where  a  new  political  career 
lay  open  before  him  in  the  course  of  the  next  administration. 

Before  the  adjournment  of  Congress  an  unusually  secret 
caucus  of  the  Federalist  members  was  held,  at  which  it  was 
resolved  that  Adams  and  Charles  C.  Pinckney  should  be  voted 

which  Adams  was  extremely  sensitive,  had  come  to  the  President's  ears, 
with  perhaps  the  knowledge  of  Dexter's  refusal  to  lend  himself  to  it. 

McIIenry  was  the  least  blameworthy  of  the  three  obnoxious  Cabinet 
counsellors,  and  certainly  betrayed  the  most  sense  of  shame.  He  must 
have  been  one  of  those  docile  men  of  mediocre  talent  who  show  a  cer 
tain  obtuseness  to  contempt,  for  he  took  several  unhandsome  rebukes 
from  Adams  before  this  last,  to  which  he  patiently  submitted.  McIIenrv's 
calibre  was  that  of  a  fair  bureau  officer,  but  his  capacity  was  unequal  to 
the  requirements  of  Secretary  of  War  in  a  time  of  military  preparations 
with  a  President  indisposed  to  facilitate  matters.  Hamilton  and  Wol- 
cott  both  confirm  the  impression  that  McIIenry  was  inefficient  for  his 
post,  witli  at  the  same  time  a  certain  provoking  unconsciousness  of  his 
inefficiency.  But  McIIenry  had  amiable  qualities;  and  the  President 
regretted  afterwards  having  displayed  so  much  rudeness  in  removing 
him. 

That  Pickering  understood  well  enough  the  dangerous  consequence 
of  a  false  relation  to  his  chief  is  manifest  from  his  own  letter  to  Monroe, 
July,  1797,  in  which  he  laid  it  down  as  a  maxim,  with  pointed  severity, 
that  the  want  of  confidence,  from  whatever  cause  it  might  arise,  was 
always  good  reason  why  the  Executive  should  remove  a  subordinate 
officer.  I>ut  Pickering's  inflexible  purpose,  his  ambition,  and  the  pur- 
blindness  of  a  mind  more  intense  in  its  workings  than  logical,  accurate, 
or  profound,  more  ingenious  in  contriving  than  practical,  betrayed  him 
into  many  inconsistencies  of  action.  Pickering  was  sternly  incor 
ruptible,  and  in  many  respects  admirably  fitted  for  any  other  post  than 
one  which  called  for  the  exercise  of  a  studious  diplomacy. 


468  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV. 

for  fairly  and  equally.  The  intention  which  thus  appeared 
was  to  gratify  the  expectation  of  the  country  by  making 
Adams  the  first;  yet  many  indulged  the  secret  hope  that  by 
some  providential  dispensation  the  electoral  result  would  prove 
to  reverse  this  order.  Pickering,  not  well  pleased  with  tht 
caucus  result,  and  thirsting  for  revenge,  broached 
to  Hamilton  the  day  after  adjournment — without 
having  the  fear  of  that  Sedition  law  before  his  eyes  for  which 
Judge  Chase  was  now  sentencing  offenders  of  the  other  party 
to  prison — "  a  bold  and  frank  exposure  of  Adams."  He  offered 
to  furnish  facts  for  such  a  publication,  and  he  labored  to  in 
stigate  Cabot  and  the  ruling  ultra  Federalists  of  New  England 
besides  to  arrange  that  Adams  should  be  thrown  out,  urging 
mischievous  experiments,  heedless  of  party  consequences,  and 
in  a  strain  of  spiteful  invective.  These  New  England  leaders 
resented  Pickering's  removal,  as  was  quite  natural ;  and  Cabot 
would  not  renew  social  intercourse  with  the  President  on  the 
latter's  return  to  Quincy.  And  yet,  while  this  Eastern  fac 
tion  would  gladly  have  seen  Adams  tripped  up  in  the  race, 
they  were  timid  about  undertaking  the  feat  themselves.  Would 
not  Maryland  or  New  Jersey  make  the  first  open  demonstra 
tion  against  him?  For  Adams  was  so  widely  popular  with 
the  mass  of  Federalists  in  New  England,  to  provoke  his  friends 
might  prove  their  own  destruction  ;  nor  after  praising  him  so 
long,  and  palliating  his  faults  to  the  last,  could  they  consist 
ently  turn  now  and  denounce  him,  as  though  to  admit  that 
they  had  hitherto  deceived  their  fellow-citizens.  An  open 
rupture,  too,  with  Adams  might  be  disastrous  to  the  Federal 
ist  party  in  the  national  election,  and  heaven  help  the  country 
should  their  party  fail.  Such  was  the  tenor  of  secret  war 
councils  in  which  Hamilton  and  other  Middle  States  chiefs 
joined,  and  to  which  Wolcott,  in  a  nerveless,  uneasy  way, 
served  as  the  Trojan  horse.*  "  It  is  with  grief  and  humilia- 

*  See  Cabot's  Life  ;  5  Iliklreth  ;  Hamilton's  Works.  McIIenry,  in 
his  blurting  style,  describes  the  pitiful  situation  of  himself  and  the  other 
party  intriguers  who  had  hitherto  tampered  with  the  disease  instead  of 
confronting  Adams  boldly.  "Nay,  their  conduct  even  now,  notwith 
standing  the  consequences  full  in  view  should  the  present  chief  be  re- 
elected,  in  most,  if  not  in  all  of  the  States,  is  tremulous,  timid,  feeble, 


1800.  INTRIGUES   AGAINST   ADAMS.  469 

tion,  but  at  the  same  time  with  perfect  confidence,"  writes  the 
latter,  privately  from  his  office-desk,  "that  I  declare  that  no 
administration  of  the  government  under  President  Adams 
could  be  successful.  His  prejudices  are  too  violent,  and  his 
resentments  of  men  of  influence  are  too  keen  to  render  it  pos 
sible  that  he  should  please  either  party  ;  and  we  all  know  that 
he  does  not  possess  and  cannot  command  the  talents,  fortitude, 
and  constancy  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a  new  party."* 
And  yet,  in  view  of  their  inability  "  to  break  up  and  new  form 
in  the  face  of  an  enemy,"  all  this  secret  consultation  seemed 
to  begin  and  end  in  a  confidential  dissection  of  Adams's  char 
acter,  sufficient  to  satisfy  these  leaders  of  his  unfit  ness  for  re 
election.  Unwilling  to  openly  denounce  him,  or  to  break 
faith  with  the  Congressional  caucus,  they  seem  to  have  hoped 
that  nevertheless  the  scales  would  fall  from  the  eyes  of  that 
public  whom  they  dared  not  enlighten. 

Adams,  who  was  made  of  sterner  stuff,  and  could  call  an 
enemy  by  his  plain  name,  showed  his  appreciation  of  the  dark 
intrigue,  so  far  as  he  could  watch  its  progress  from  his  home 
stead,  by  denouncing  his  Massachusetts  neighbors  who  were 
mixing  in  it  as  the  "  Essex  Junto,"  designating  a  knot  of  ultra 
Federalists  by  the  name  of  the  county  where  Cabot,  Goodhue, 
and  other  local  managers,  friends  of  Pickering,  lived  ;  though 
residents  elsewhere,  like  Ames,  of  Norfolk,  were  properly  in 
cluded.  The  Adamses,  father  and  son,  gave  this  "Essex 
Junto"  a  national  notoriety,  which  the  conduct  of  its  mem 
bers  a  few  years  after  enhanced ;  but  the  title  was  bestowed 
much  earlier  upon  a  set  of  able  but  perverse  men,  pre-eminent 
in  the  local  politics  of  Massachusetts  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
or  rnore.f 

deceptive  and  cowardly.  They  write  private  letters.  To  whom  ?  To 
each  other.  But  they  do  nothing  to  give  a  proper  direction  to  the  public 
mind.  They  observe,  even  in  their  conversation,  a  discreet  circumspec 
tion,  ill  calculated  to  diffuse  information,  or  to  prepare  the  mass  of  the 
people.  They  meditate  in  private.  Can  good  come  out  of  such  a  svs- 
tem  ?  If  the  party  recover  its  pristine  energy  and  splendor,  shall  I  as 
cribe  it  to  such  cunning,  paltry,  indecisive,  back-door  conduct?"  Mc- 
Henry  to  Wolcott,  July  22d,  1800. 

";:  Cabot's  Life ;  Wolcott  to  Cabot  and  Ames. 

f  See  Lodge's  Life  of  Cabot,  17,  for  a  description  of  the  Essex  Junto. 
Hancock  applied  the  title  about  1781,  and  possibly  it  originated  much 


470  HISTORY   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

In  order  to  foster  dissensions  between  the  Federal  candidates, 
and  perhaps  to  sow  seed  which  might  fructify  if  Pinckney  were 
the  next  President,  Pickering  wrote  the  latter  a  long 
epistle,  soon  after  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  in 
terms  very  abusive  of  the  President,  making  himself  out  a 
martyr  for  his  rebuke  of  Adams's  nepotism  and  his  inter 
ference  to  establish  Hamilton  as  the  ranking  major-general. 
His  disgust  with  the  vanity  of  Adams,  whom  he  considered 
stone-blind  to  his  own  faults,  was  conveyed  as  frankly  as  the 
conviction  that  the  late  Secretary  of  State  was  a  much  better 
judge  of  public  measures. 

Inciting  against  such  maliguants  within  his  own  party  the 
mass  of  Federalists  in  the  country  who  glorified  the  President's 
wisdom  and  firmness,  and  more  especially  the  solid  men  of 
Boston,  Adams,  with  his  friends,  opened  a  raking  fire  upon 
the  Essex  Junto  as  a  "  British  faction,"  joining  party  Repub 
licans  in  affixing  a  Jeffersonian  stigma,  to  which  they  had  be 
come  exceedingly  sensitive,  and  yet  not  using  it  unfittingly.  A 
careless  reference  to  "  British  influence,"  however,  in  Adams's 
old  letter  of  1792  to  Tench  Coxe*  with  reference  to  the  Pinck- 
neys, — one  of  whom,  educated  abroad,  had  formed  a  friendship 
with  the  Duke  of  Leeds, — nearly  betrayed  the  President  into 
unpleasant  relations  with  both  his  former  and  present  associate 
on  the  .electoral  ticket.  That  letter,  whose  timely 
possession  had  relieved  Duaue  of  a  prosecution  for 
libel,  was  soon  after  published  in  the  Aurora,  upon  which 
Thomas  Pinckney  courteously  asked  Adams  to  deny  what  ap 
peared  to  be  some  forgery.  But  the  President  had 
to  admit  that  the  epistle  was  genuine  ;  and  his  reply, 
worded  in  as  conciliating  language  as  possible,  made  it  clear 
that  in  a  fit  of  peevishness  he  had  not  only  done  the  brothers  in 
justice  in  imputing  the  charge  of  British  influence,  but,  in  fact, 

earlier.  Theophilus  Parsons,  Cabot,  Ames,  Stephen  Iligginson,  and  the 
Lowells  belonged  to  it;  likewise  Pickering,  after  lie  removed  to  Massa 
chusetts.  It  is  quite  likely  their  conferenees  were  informal  and  without 
organization. 

*  Coxe  had  been  removed  from  the  Assistant  Secretaryship  of  the 
Treasury,  for  political  reasons,  by  Wolcott,  and  he  took  his  revenge  by 
bringing  out  this  letter. 


1800.  HAMILTON   WRITES   DOWN   ADAMS.  471 

mingled   carelessly  in   mind   the  various  distinguished  South 
Carolina  statesmen  who  bore  the  name  of  Pinckney.* 

Hamilton  was  one'of  those  who  suffered  from  the  double  fire 
to  which  the  "British  faction"  had  now  become  exposed. 
Having  now  been  mustered  out  of  service  with  the  rest  of  the 
provisional  forces,  he  felt  under  no  further  constraint  as  to  vent 
ing  his  riiind  concerning  the  President,  from  whom  his  pride 
had  suffered  such  terrible  wounds.  The  campaign  attacks 
upon  his  close  political  allies  of  the  "  Essex  Junto  "  afforded 
him  good  occasion  for  that  public  exposure  of  Adams  which 
Pickering  wished  made,  but  their  more  prudent  conspirators 
shrunk  from  attempting.  By  way  of  opening,  he  now 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  President,  asking  him  to 
explain  whether  he  had  mentioned  the  writer  as  one  who 
belonged  to  a  British  faction.  Adams  took  no  no 
tice  either  of  this  letter  or  a  subsequent  one,  in  which 
Hamilton  angrily  repelled  all  aspersions  of  the  kind  against 
him.  But  long  before  writing  the  first  of  these  letters  Ham 
ilton  had  set  Wolcott  to  gathering  evidence  of 
Adams's  unfitness,  with  the  view7  of  bringing  some 
of  the  doubtful  electors  to  unite  in  preferring  Pinckney;  and 
to  the  pamphlet  for  which  this  one  sided  correspondence  served 
as  the  shoeing-horn  he  now  busily  addressed  himself,  the  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury  mousing  about  the  archives  to  procure 
information  for  his  use,  and  giving  the  draft  a  personal  revision. 
Between  their  doubts  and  desires,  however,  Hamilton's  confi 
dential  advisers  were  in  a  quandary  about  such  a  publication. 
If  the  scheme  should  draw  votes  from  Adams  without  aiding 
the  Republicans,  all  was  well  enough  ;  but  perhaps  it  would 
be  otherwise,  and  might  not  a  secret  exposure,  an  anony 
mous  pamphlet,  be  more  politic?  Some  of  Hamilton's  more 
moderate  counsellors  recalled  the  caucus  agreement  to  vote 
fairly  for  both  Adams  and  Pinckney,  and  deprecated  what 
seemed  so  much  like  a  breach  of  faith.  But  Hamilton  was 
accustomed  to  give,  not  to  receive  advice,  and,  confident  in 
his  own  pen,  he  proceeded  with  his  self-imposed  task,  and 
on  its  completion  printed  the  document.  Intended,  appar- 

*  See  5  Ilildreth,  378. 


472  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.       CHAP.  IV 

ently,  for  private  circulation  only,  and  among  Federal  lead 
ers,  extracts  from  it  so  speedily  appeared  in  the  opposition 
pre*s  that  an  authentic  publication  was  found  necessary. 

Hamilton  had  undertaken  more  than  he  could  perform  in 
making  this  pamphlet  appear  intended  only  for  his  personal 
justification.  To  disclaim  the  charge  of  British  influence  on 
his  own  part,  or  even,  as  he  here  assumed  to  do,  for  the  Pinck- 
neys,  required  little  space,  but  his  scope  was  wider.  Going 
back  to  recall  the  "  double  chance  "  effort  of  the  last  election 
as  the  cause  of  the  President's  present  enmity  towards  him, 
he  reverted  still  further  to  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  in  order 
to  prove  Adams  unsound  in  his  military  judgment.  Admit 
ting  that  Adams  had  made  a  good  Vice-President,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  demonstrate  the  faults  of  his  Presidential  adminis 
tration  as  they  occurred  to  him,  chiefly  by  dwelling  upon  such 
faults  of  temper  as  egotism,  vanity,  and  jealousy.  While 
Hamilton,  moreover,  would  have  made  much  of  the  President's 
disregard  of  his  Cabinet  advisers,  he  dared  not  avow  that  in 
this  French  business  the  would-be  directors  were  right  while 
Adams  was  wrong.  In  short,  hedged  by  the  necessity  of  prac 
tising  some  dissimulation  as  to  the  deepest  of  his  own  private 
sorrows,  and  of  avoiding  the  discussion  of  public  issues  upon 
which  the  party  agreed  substantially  with  the  President  but 
not  party  leaders,  and  feeling  besides,  that  his  most  trusted 
political  associates  doubted  or  disapproved  his  present  publi 
cation,  Hamilton  really  made  out  a  weak  case.  He  showed 
neither  corruption,  insanity,  nor  ruinous  misbehavior  on 
Adams's  part,  as  some  had  expected  him  to  do;  nor  that  he 
had  treated  Washington  disrespectfully.  Indeed,  he  com 
mented  far  less  severely  than  in  his  confidential  letters  upon 
the  President's  character,  summing  it  up,  by  no  means  happily, 
as  that  of  a  man  with  "an  imagination  sublimated  and  eccen 
tric,  propitious  neither  to  the  regular  display  of  sound  judg 
ment  nor  to  steady  perseverance  in  a  systematic  plan  of 
conduct."* 

The  reception  of  Hamilton's  pamphlet  by  those  for  whom 
it  was  intended  by  no  means  justified  his  own  hopes.     Some 


See  Hamilton's  Works. 


1800.  HAMILTON   WRITES   DOWN   ADAMS.  473 

thought  it  went  too  far;  others  not  far  enough.  They  who 
had  expected  to  find  that  Adams  embroiled  this  country  with 
England  in  order  to  help  his  personal  popularity,  or  that  he 
was  manifestly  unsound  in  commerce  and  finance,  were,  of 
course,  disappointed.  The  Junto  deplored  the  appearance  of 
a  campaign  document  which  was  likely  to  do  their  Jacobin 
opponents  so  good  service,  and  it  was  thought  by  some  that 
Hamilton  betrayed  the  same  vanity  and  egotism  on  his  part 
which  he  here  charged  upon  the  President.  Convinced  in  his 
own  mind  that  the  pamphlet  was  inconclusive,  that  it  con 
sisted  too  largely  of  an  estimate  of  character,  made  as  if  upon 
an  offended  individual's  personal  warrant,  Hamilton  sent  to 
Pickering  for  more  anecdotes  and  facts  ;  but  the  lat-  ^^  13 
ter  was  now  in  the  backwoods,  and  new  materials 
were  not  easily  obtainable.* 

The  clear-eyed  leader  of  the  Democracy,  cool,  subtle,  per 
severing,  and  insinuating,  laying  his  deepest  plans  with  the 
most  profound  secrecy,  knowing  the  condition  of  affairs  in 
each  State  legislature,  and  closely  calculating  how  the  electo 
ral  votes  would  foot  up,  had  meanwhile  watc-hed  every  false 
movement  of  his  adversaries  and  quickly  turned  it  to  the  ad 
vantage  of  his  party.  The  Republican  caucus  in  Congress 
had  nominated  him  without  hesitation  for  the  Presidency, 
designating  Burr  for  the  second  place,  a  man  whom  Jefferson 
had  instinctively  distrusted,  but  whose  New  York  services  and 
influence  made  his  candidacy  irresistible.  Jefferson's  confi 
dence  was  in  the  great  body  of  the  American  people,  irre 
spective  of  party,  who,  as  he  believed,  were  for  "republican 
forms,  republican  principles,  simplicity,  economy,  civil  and 
religious  freedom."  While  he  carefully  abstained  still  from 
open  opposition  to  the  new  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  he  held 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  through  his  staff  officers,  of  whom 
Madison,  now  serving  in  the  Virginia  legislature,  was  the  chief, 
firmly,  but  temperately,  to  that  revolutionary  protest  against 
those  measures  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  originated/)" 

*  See  Hamilton's  Works;  Lives  of  Pickering.  Cabot,  etc. 

f  See  5  Ilildrelh;  Jefferson's  and  Madison's  Writings.  Madison 
prepared  the  address  which  defended  Virginia's  action.  Nicholas,  of 
Kentucky,  being  now  dead,  the  justification  of  the  Kentucky  legislature 
VOL.  i. — 40 


474  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  principles  upon  which  Jefferson's  candidacy  now  rested 
before  the  people  may  best  be  gathered  from  a  letter  to  Gerry, 
in  1799,  which,  prepared  carefully,  was  intended,  notwith 
standing  its  passionate  strain,  to  set  them  plainly  forth  ;  for, 
as  we  should  remember,  at  this  day  neither  party  platforms 
were  known  nor  a  public  acceptance  of  the  candidacy  by 
Presidential  nominees.  Jefferson  was,  as  he  here  expressed 
himself,  for  inviolably  preserving  the  Federal  Constitution 
according  to  the  true  sense  in  which  it  was  advocated  and 
adopted,  without  mouarchizing  its  features  or  worming  out  the 
elective  principle;  for  keeping  to  the  States  the  powers  not 
yielded  by  them  to  the  Union,  not  for  transferring  all  the 
power  of  the  States  to  the  General  Government,  and  all  those 
of  that  government  to  the  Executive  branch  ;  for  a  govern 
ment  rigorously  frugal  and  simple,  applying  all  possible  sav 
ings  of  the  revenue  for  discharging  the  public  debt,  and  not 
increasing  it  as  though  it  were  a  public  blessing;  for  relying,* 
in  internal  defence,  solely  on  our  militia  till  actual  invasion, 
maintaining  such  a  naval  force  only  as  might  protect  our 
coasts  and  harbors;  for  free  commerce  with  all  nations,  polit 
ical  connection  with  none,  and  little  or  no  diplomatic  estab 
lishment,  not  for  linking  ourselves  with  the  quarrels  of  Eu 
rope ;  for  freedom  of  religion  ;  for  freedom  of  the  press,  and 
against  all  violations  of  the  Constitution  to  silence  by  force, 
and  not  by  reason,  complaints,  just  or  unjust,  of  citizens 
against  the  conduct  of  their  agents ;  for  encouraging  the  pro 
gress  of  science,  and  going,  not  backwards  but  forwards,  to 
look  for  improvement.  A  sincere  well-wisher,  he  adds,  to  the 
success  of  the  French  revolution,  he  still  wishes  it  may  end 
in  the  establishment  of  a  free  and  well-ordered  republic;  but 
he  has  not  been  insensible  to  the  atrocious  French  depreda 
tions  on  our  commerce,  and  the  first  object  of  his  heart  is  his 
own  country.* 

Peter  Porcupine  had  disappeared  from  Philadelphia  soon 
after  McKean's  election,    provoking,  still  earlier,  the  ire  of 

fell  into  other  hands.  The  connection  of  Jefferson  with  the  famous 
Kentucky  resolutions  was  not  at  this  time  known,  but  suspicion  was  at 
tached  to  him. 

*  See  4  Jefferson's  Works,  2G8,  January  26th;  1799. 


1800.  PORCUPINE   AND   THE   PRESS.  475 

the  Adams  Federalists  by  bitterly  assailing  the  policy  of  a 
new  French  mission,*  besides  involving  himself  in  costly  liti 
gation  for  libelling  Dr.  Rush  and  the  old-school  medical 
methods/)"  After  a  brief  sojourn  at  New  York  Cobbett  re 
turned  home  to  England,  where  his  pen  became  afterwards 
enlisted  on  behalf  of  the  working  classes;  and  he  ripened  in 
later  years  into  a  British  radical  and  a  venerator  of  Paine. 
Being  a  man  of  industry,  fond  of  work,  and  abstemious  in 
habits,  he  proved  himself  one  of  the  most  prolific  writers  in  the 
English  tongue  ;  not  so  successful  a  dabster,  however,  in  politi 
cal  satire,  severe  as  he  could  be  when  he  chose,  as  in  the 
sterner  drudgery  of  reporting  the  Parliamentary  debates.  We 
shall  see  that,  very  soon  after  this  Presidential  contest  had 
been  decided  and  the  Sedition  law  expired,  that  coarse  and 
vituperative  strain  of  political  invective  and  personal  abuse 
in  which  American  journalism  had  so  much  indulged  of  late 
sensibly  diminished. 

To  the  new  Federal  capital,  now  doubly  consecrated  in  the 
hearts  of  the  American  people  by  the  hallowed  name  of 
its  deceased  founder,  the  President  welcomed  Con- 

.,  .  .  Nov.  17-22. 

gress  at  its  second  and  imal  session,!  congratulating 
the  two  Houses  "  on   the^prospect  of  a  residence  not  to  be 
changed."     The  removal  of  the  Federal  government  to  this 
sequestered  and   uupopulous  region,  over   which  it  exercised 
exclusive  jurisdiction,  proved  most  timely;  for  had  the  closing 

*  "  Porcupine's  Gazette  and  Fenno's  Gazette  from  the  moment  of  the 
mission  to  France,  aided,  countenanced,  and  encouraged  by  soi-disant 
Federalists  in  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia,  have  done  more  to 
shuHle  the  cards  into  the  hands  of  the  Jacobin  leaders  than  all  the 
acts  of  administration  and  ;ill  the  policy  of  opposition  from  the  com 
mencement  of  the  government."  9  John  Adams's  Works,  September 
10th,  1800. 

f  Dr.  Hush's  suit  was  brought  to  trial  on  the  day  of  Washington's 
death  ;  and  Cobbett  afterwards  said,  it  was  a  singular  coincidence  tha* 
while  the  father  of  his  country  was  perishing  under  the  lancet,  he, 
Cobbett,  should  be  mulcted  in  a  verdict  of  $oOOO  for  having  exposed 
and  ridiculed  the  dangerous  practice  of  excessive  bleeding. 

J  See  Act  April  24th,  1800,  which  provided  for  the  removal  from 
Philadelphia. 


476  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

scenes  of  so  exciting  a  Presidential  contest  been  enacted  at 
Philadelphia,  there  would  have  been  undoubtedly  serious  riots 
and  probably  bloodshed. 

This  was,  indeed,  a  place  for  central  seclusion.  All  the 
way  from  Baltimore  one  rode  hither  through  thick  woods, 
seeing  scarcely  a  house  or  a  human  being.  An  unfinished 
block  on  Capitol  Hill  marked  the  site  of  that  great  purchase 
'of  6000  lots  which  had  hastened  the  insolvency  of  Morris, 
Greeuleaf,  and  Nicholson;  their  agreement  with  the  govern 
ment  to  build  brick  houses  remaining  unfulfilled.  Scarcely 
five  hundred  inhabitants  had  yet  appeared  in  the  new  city; 
and  they  were  chiefly  negroes  and  the  foreign  laborers  needful 
on  the  public  works,  who  dwelt  in  cheap  huts.  Only  the 
north  wing  of  the  splendid  Capitol,  commenced  on  this  wooded 
height,  whose  southeast  corner-stone  Washington  himself  laid 
in  1793,  with  masonic  ceremonies,  peered  above  the  clustering 
oats.  The  President's  house,  some  two  miles  to  the  westward, 
had  been  planned  on  a  liberal  scale,  and  was  decently  fit  for 
habitation  ;  but  the  plastering  was  damp,  and  some  of  the 
commonest  conveniences  were  wanting.  No  fencing  was  yet 
visible  in  the  city,  brick-kilns  peeped  out  here  and  there  like 
ant-hills;  nothing,  wrote  Wolcott,  was  plenty  except  pro 
visions.  So  few  and  so  scattered  •'ere  the  houses  that  com 
fortable  quarters  for  the  representatives  of  the  nation  could 
only  be  had  in  the  neighborhood  of  Georgetown,  whither,  to 
the  confusion  of  L'Enfant's  plans,  the  gregarious  and  fash 
ionably  inclined  must  consequently  have  tended. 

L'Enfant  himself,  a  fussy  and  insubordinate  Frenchman, 
who  claimed  the  same  right  to  tear  down  a  private  house 
which  did  not  please  him  as  to  root  up  a  tree,  had  long  since 
dissolved  relations  with  our  government,  and  under  commis 
sioners  appointed  soon  after  the  original  proprietors  passed 
their  deeds  the  grand  projects  for  the  Federal  residence  at 
Washington  progressed  as  fairly  as  the  moderate  receipt  of 
$1,047,167  since  1791  and  the  embarrassments  of  private 
speculators  would  permit.  Donations  from  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  aggregating  about  $200,000,  constituted  a  portion 
of  this  fund.  Maryland  had  loaned  money  to  forward  the 
public  works.  But  the  general  business  stagnation,  and  a  fear 


1800.  NEW   FRENCH   CONVENTION.  477 

lately  entertained  in  various  quarters  of  the  Union  that 
Congress'  would  remain  permanently  at  Philadelphia,  had  op 
erated  quite  adversely  to  the  interests  of  the  new  city. 

The  new  French  convention,  which  Davie  had  recently 
brought  home,  leaving  his  fellow-envoys  in  Europe,  was  the 
first  topic  to  absorh  attention  at  this  session.  As  Adams  and 
the  more  rational  part  of  the  community  had  anticipated,  the 
new  American  envoys  were  cordially  received  at  Paris  by 
Talleyrand  and  the  French  government  and  speedily  put  in 
the  way  of  accomplishing  the  main  object  of  thoir  mission. 
Not  even  that  new  revolution  of  November,  1799,  which 
swept  away  "  Monsieur  Five- Heads,"*  and  established  Napo 
leon  at  the  head  of  affairs  as  First  Consul,  could  affect  the 
present  negotiation  so  long  as  Adams  permitted  it 
to  proceed.  Our  three  envoys,  having  met  at  Paris, 
•"March  2d,  1800,  presented  their  credentials  after  the  usual 
manner,  upon  which  Napoleon  designated  a  commission  to 
treat  with  them,  placing  at  its  head  his  brother,  Joseph  Bona 
parte.  The  negotiations  took  shape  in  a  new  convention,  to 
which  all  parties  assented.  This  convention  de 
clared  firm,  inviolable,  and  universal  peace  between 
France  and  the  United  States,  with  a  mutual  restoration  of 
such  captured  public  ships  and  private  property  as  had  not 
already  been  condemned.  Other  articles  in  restraint  of  the 
harassing  pretext  lately  set  up  by  French  cruisers,  laid  down 
international  rules  more  liberal  to  neutrals  than  those  under 
the  British  treaty,  including  the  rule  once  more  that  "free 
ships  should  make  free  goods,"  except  as  to  contraband  ;  de 
fining  blockade  and  contraband  fairly;  excluding  the  right 
of  search  in  the  sense  of  using  force;  confiscating  goods  on  an 
enemy's  vessel,  and  making  provision  as  to  prizes,  privateers, 
and  the  sequestration  of  debts  of  reciprocal  advantage.f 

But  in  the  course  of  negotiation  it  appeared  that  the  new 
American  envoys  were  instructed  differently  from  their  prede 
cessors,  namely,  so  as  to  insist  (agreeably  to  the  act  of  Con 
gress)  that  the  old  treaties  with  France  wore  no  longer  in 

*  The  style  Ames  applied  to  the  Directory.  Fisher  Ames's  Works, 
1799. 

f*See  United  States  Statutes  at  Large,  vol.  viii. 


478  *    HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV 

force;  while  the  interest  of  France,  on  the  other  hand,  was  to 
treat  those  treaties  as  still  subsisting  as  the  basis  of  a  new 
agreement,  with  all  their  incidental  advantages.  Making  the 
best  use  of  this  unexpected  situation,  the  French  negotiators 
quite  acutely  proposed  that  either  (1)  the  old  treaties  should 
be  considered  in  force,  with  the  mutual  indemnities  stipulated 
for,  or  else  (2)  a  new  treaty  should  ignore  all  claims  for  spolia 
tions,  since,  if  110  former  treaty  was  now  existing,  there  re 
mained  no  legal  basis  for  granting  an  indemnity.  Placed  in 
this  dilemma,  our  envoys,  who  were  becoming  impressed  by 
the  rapid  successes  which  attended  Napoleon's  arms,  consented 
to  the  insertion  of  a  provisional  article  concerning  spoliations 
in  the  new  treaty,  namely,  that,  since  neither  side  could  agree 
upon  these  points,  there  would  be  further  negotiation  at  a 
convenient  time,  but  meantime  the  old  treaties  with  France 
should  have  no  force.  This  constituted  article  2  of  the  new 
convention. 

Unpalatable  to  American  merchants  as  must  have  been  a 
new  French  treatv  with  indemnity  for  French  spoli- 

Dccember  15.       .  .        ,      ,  .  „         , 

ations  omitted,  this  was  not  a  treaty  for  the  Ameri 
can  Senate  to  reject,  so  long  as  the  President  himself  favored 
confirmation.  Consulted  by  influential  Senators  of  the  ultra 
Federal  wing  as  to  what  they  had  better  do,  Hamilton  wisely 
advised  them,  in  view  of  the  present  state  of  the  public  rnind, 
not  to  take  the  risk  of  rejection,  lest  they  should  finish  the 
ruin  of  the  party,  especially  as  a  new  negotiation  in  Jacobin 
hands  might  make  the  business  worse.  The  British  ministry 
considered  the  treaty  unobjectionable  as  concerned  their  coun 
try.*  But,  too  rancorous  to  yield  wholly  to  the  President's 
French  policy,  the  Senate  was  brought  to  the  two-thirds  con 
firmation  only  by  expunging  article  2  altogether,  and  pro 
viding  that  the  convention,  instead  of  being  perpet- 

Feb.18.  1801.  .    ,  A   l 

ual,   should    be   limited    to   eight   years.      Adams 
ratified  the  convention  in  this  conditional  form,  notwithstand 
ing  his  preference  had  been   to  leave   the  instrument  as  it 
originally  stood.     The  document  going  back  in  this  offensive 
shape   to   France,  Napoleon,   not  to  be  outwitted, 
ratified  it  likewise,  with  the  further  proviso  thai  by 


King  to  Miirshall,  October  31st,  1800. 


1800.         NEW  FRENCH  CONVENTION.          479 

retrenchment  of  the  second  article,  each  country  was  under 
stood  to  renounce  the  pretensions  which  constituted  its  object. 
Thus  was  the  amended  treaty  finally  ratified  by  the     ^  ^ 
United  States  after  Adams's  term  had  expired  ;  and 
this  Senatorial  spleen  only  rid  France  finally  of  the  unwelcome 
duty  of  indemnifying  American  spoliations.* 

A  new  treaty  with  Prussia,t  which  John  Quincy  Adams  had 
been  employed  in  negotiating,  in  place  of  the  old  and  expiring 
one,  exhibited  in  its  terms  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
Baltic  powers  to  acquiesce  in  the  English  restraints  upon  car 
rying  an  enemy's  property  in  neutral  vessels, 

Wolcott,  whose  conscience  seems  to  have  smote  him  wrhile  he 
was  working  out  the  Hamilton  plot  against  the  President,  and 
who  doubtless  had  no  wish  to  encounter  one  of  John  Adams's 
gales  by  courting  a  detection  while  he  remained  in  office,  had 
made  known  his  wish  to  retire  from  the  Treasury  Department 
at  the  close  of  the  year;  which  the  President,  quite  unsuspicious 
of  his  infidelity,  reluctantly  granted,  following  him  into  pri 
vate  life  with  his  friendly  assurances,  of  which  he  gave  sub 
stantial  token  by  appointing  him  one  of  the  new  circuit  judges 
a  few  weeks  later,  under  an  act  of  which  we  shall  presently 
speak.  Wolcott  had  shown  good  husbandry  as  a  financier  in 
an  unfavorable  season,  and  his  final  report  exhibited  an  im 
proving  treasury  condition,  with  about  $2,500,000  increase  of 
import  duties  upon  the  preceding  fiscal  year,  $734,000  derived 
from  direct  taxation,  and  about  8900,000  from  internal  duties. 
Dexter  was  appointed  Wolcott's  successor,  the  War  Depart 
ment,  from  which  he  was  transferred,  remaining  without  a 
head  until  Roger  Griswold  supplied  the  vacancy  in  February. 
During  the  latter  month  Theophilus  Parsons,  of  Massachusetts, 
received  the  honor  of  a  commission  as  Attorney-General  for 
temporary  convenience. 

*  See  Hamilton's  Works  ;  letters  from  Gouverneur  Morris,  Gunn, 
Sedgwiek,  ctc.  Marshall,  though  dissatisfied  with  the  treaty,  was,  like 
Hamilton,  disposed  to  ratify  without  conditions.  These  claims  for 
American  spoliations  have  been  before  our  Congress  for  recognition 
more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century,  but  the  private  sufferers  never 
procured  compensation. 

t  Negotiated  July  lltli,  1799,  and  ratifications  exchanged  June  22d, 
1800. 


480  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Another  high  office  at  Adams's  disposal,  but  of  tenure  as 
grand  as  these  Cabinet  posts  were  insignificant,  was  the  Chief 
Justiceship  of  the  United  States,  which  the  resignation  of 
Ellsworth,  who  concluded  to  remain  abroad  at  the  close  of  his 
French  mission,  had  left  vacant.  To  John  Jay,  whose  high 
sense  of  honor  and  disinterested  patriotism  had  brought  him 
at  length  to  a  cordial  appreciation  of  the  President's  foreign 
policy,  the  office  he  had  formerly  held  was  once  more  tendered  ;* 
but  Jay  had  already  resolved  to  retire  from  public  life  alto 
gether  with  the  end  of  his  present  term  as  governor  of  New 
York.  Marshall,  the  present  Secretary  of  State, 

January  20.  .      * 

was  accordingly  appointed  ;  and  a  splendid  appoint 
ment  this  proved,  for,  equal  to  Jay  and  Ellsworth,  at  all  events, 
in  professional  learning,  his  strong  grasp  of  leading  principles, 
moderation,  firmness,  and  beautiful  simplicity  of  character, 
qualified  him  pre-eminently  to  become  the  first  of  Federal 
Chief  Justices  who  grew  and  mellowed  in  the  office.  But  in 
the  executive  chaos  of  these  last  weeks  Marshall  continued 
the  duties  of  Secretary  of  State  for  the  residue  of  this  Presi 
dential  term. 

Wolcott  did  not  leave  public  office  without  being  subjected 
to  slanderous  imputations.  It  so  happened  that  soon  after  the 
public  archives  were  removed  from  Philadelphia  to  the  new 
seat  of  government,  fires  broke  out,  first  at  the  war  office, 
next  at  the  treasury,  by  the  former  of  which  the  military 
records  of  the  United  States  were  utterly  consumed.  Opposi 
tion  newspapers  charged  that  these  were  incendiary  fires,  kin 
dled  purposely  in  order  to  destroy  the  proofs  of  some  official 
mal-admiuistration  ;  and  upon  slight  circumstances  the  sus 
picion  fastened  upon  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. t 

The  excitement  of  the  Presidential  campaign  was  Intense. 
But  the  electoral  issue  having  reduced  itself  mainly 
into  a  rival  contest  for  capturing  State  legislatures, 

*  "  I  often  say,"  writes  John  Adams,  "  that  when  my  confidence  in 
Mr.  Jay  shall  cease,  I  must  give  up  the  cause  of  confidence  and  renounce 
it  with  all  men."  See  John  Adams's  Works,  November-December,  1800. 

f  Dexter  was  absent  when  the  war  records  were  burnt.  Wolcott  ap 
peared  early  at  the  scene  of  conflagration  in  each  instance ;  but  upon 
investigation  his  conduct  was  quite  satisfactorily  explained.  See  Con 
gressional  documents. 


1800.  THE  ELECTORAL  VOTES.  481 

the  immediate  wishes  of  the  people  had  been  of  secondary  con 
sideration.  The  New  York  legislature  cast  the  momentous 
ballot  of  that  State  for  Jefferson  and  Burr,  as  had  been  ex 
pected,  giving  twelve  votes  for  each.  But  Pennsylvania,  whose 
fifteen  electoral  votes  might  in  a  different  contingency  have 
been  too  precious  for  the  popular  party  to  lose,  was  still,  to 
Governor  McKean's  discomfiture,  tied  in  the  new  legislature 
by  a  slightly  Federal  Senate,  notwithstanding  Republicans 
predominated  in  the  new  House ;  so  that  after  a  vain  effort  to 
procure  the  joint  ballot  of  the  legislature,  which  must  have 
yielded  Jefferson  electors,  if  given  at  all,  the  popular  branch, 
rather  than  have  Pennsylvania  thrown  entirely  out  of  the 
electoral  count  through  this  legislative  deadlock, 

.  .    ,  i      i       -n         December. 

gave  way  to  a  compromise,  which  granted  the  Ke- 
publicans  eight  votes  to  the  Federal  candidates'  seven.  A 
Republican  State  was  thus  held  by  the  conservative  opposing 
influence  which  remained  in  a  Senate  only  gradually  alterable, 
so  that  it  cast  virtually  but  one  of  its  fifteen  electoral  votes  for 
the  men  of  its  choice.  In  North  Carolina  and  Maryland,  on 
the  other  hand,  Republican  gains  in  the  popular  branch  as 
against  a  Federalist  Senate,  kept  each  legislature  from  repeal 
ing  the  former  law  for  a  district  election  of  electors,  which 
divided  the  electoral  vote  of  these  States,  and  so  fairly  neu 
tralized  this  defection  of  Pennsylvania.  The  doubtful  State 
of  New  Jersey  went  to  the  Federalists.  Massachusetts  kept 
her  electoral  vote  to  the  legislature,  while  Virginia  chose  elec 
tors  by  a  general  ticket.  Probably  Republican  electors  would 
have  been  chosen  over  the  Federalists  had  the  voters  at  large 
in  each  State  been  uniformly  permitted  to  vote  as  they  do  in 
these  later  times. 

In  the  South  Carolina  legislature,  which  was  of  mixed 
complexion,  a  diversion  had  been  attempted,  which  Hamilton's 
pamphlet  must  have  sought  to  assist.*  This  was,  in  a  word, 
by  dropping  both  the  Northern  candidates,  to  cast  the  eight 
votes  of  that  State  for  Jefferson  and  Pinckncy  together,  both 

*  John  Quincy  Adams  considered  that  this  was  the  main  object  of 
Hamilton's  publication;  an  idea  he  probably  procured  from  his  father, 
as  he  was  at  this  time  abroad.     But  that  pamphlet  was  ostensibly  in 
tended  rather  for  New  England  circulation. 
VOL.  i.~ 41 


482  HISTOEY  OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

of  whom  were  popular.  Piuckney,  however,  who  was  a  man 
of  chivalrous  honor,  refused  to  break  faith  with  Adams  and 
his  friends,  notwithstanding  the  "  British  faction  "  charge ;  and 
accordingly  South  Carolina's  electoral  votes  in  the  legislature 
went  to  Jefferson  and  Burr  instead. 

It  was  not  the  national  rivalry  between  Federalists  and 
Republicans,  as  the  event  proved,  which  was  here  to  jeopar 
dize  the  Presidential  title,  but  that  fatal  clause  of  the  Consti 
tution,  as  it  then  stood,  under  which  each  elector  cast  his  two 
ballots  without  designating  which  should  be  President  and 
which  Vice-President.  While  their  own  dark  intrigues  for 
the  "double  chance"  were  frustrated  this  fall  beyond  a  per- 
adventure  by  the  prudent  dropping  out  of  a  single  Pinckney 
ballot  in  Rbede  Island,  and  both  their  candidates  were  de 
feated  moreover,  the  ultra  Federalists  found  a  new  opportunity 
presented  for  baffling  the  public  wishes  by  an  unexpected  tie 
which  occurred  between  Jefferson  and  Burr,  whose  electors 
appear  to  have  held  too  faithfully  together  in  the  double  vote 
for  the  immediate  interests  of  the  party.  This,  of  course,  pre 
vented,  and  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  a  constitutional 
choice  of  President  by  electors,  and  devolved  the  duty  upon  a 
House  controlled  by  the  political  opponents  of  both  Jefferson 
and  Burr  to  decide  which  of  the  two  they  should  make  the 
Chief  Magistrate. 

The  probability  that  the  Presidential  election  would  take 
such  a  turn  flashed  upon  Congress  and  our  anxious  politicians 
the  instant  the  news  of  South  Carolina's  electoral  action 
reached  them,  and  while,  in  fact,  the  votes  of  the  most  distant 
States  of  the  Union  were  still  in  surmise.  With  all  the  South 
Carolina  votes  ascertained  in  favor  of  Jefferson  and  Burr,  a 
Republican  victory  in  the  electoral  college  was  certain ;  but 
had  Jefferson  and  Piuckney  diverted  those  votes,  either  Jef 
ferson  would  have  been  President  by  his  gain  upon  Burr,  or 
else,  by  a  new  variation  of  the  "double  tie"  programme,  the 
ultra  Federalists  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress  might 
have  brought  in  Pinckney.* 

*  The  assumption  is  sometimes  made  that  had  South  Carolina  divided 
her  vote,  as  proposed,  between  Jefferson  and  Pinckney,  there  would  have 
been  a  tie  between  Jefferson  and  Pinekney,  and  hence  that  the  Federal 


1800.  JEFFERSON   AND   BURR   EQUAL.  483 

Now  that  public  opiuion  was  such  a  feather  in  the  Presi 
dential  scales,  no  one  comprehended  Jefferson's  danger  at  the 
hands  of  unscrupulous  opponents  more  quickly  than  did  Jef 
ferson  himself.  Madison  and  Gallatin  were  long  since  desig 
nated  by  him  for  the  State  and  Treasury  heads  in  case  of  his 
election.  Immediately  upon  the  news  from  South 
Carolina  he  courted  the  Livingston  influence  in 
New  York,  which  appeared  to  waver  as  between  himself  and 
Burr,  by  tendering  gracefully  the  Navy  Department  to  Chan 
cellor  Livingston,  the  ruling  spirit  of  that  family.  Next  he 
wrote  to  his  coequal  Burr  a  letter,  which  was  well 

Dec    15 

calculated  to  draw  out  the  latter's  views  with  refer 
ence  to  giving  Jefferson  the  priority.     And  still  troubled  over 
the   uncertain  situation  he  confidentially  acquainted  Madison 
with  the  whole  of  the  dangerous  Federalist  scheme 

P       ,  ...  1-1  •  Dec.  18,  19. 

lor  keeping  him  out,  which  was  in  progress,  and  an 
nounced  his  intention  to  procure  an  interview  with  the  Presi 
dent,  in  the  hope  of  reaching  a  candid  understanding  with 
him.* 

This  scheme,  which  Federalist  newspapers  began  soon  to 
discuss  openly,  presented  two  alternatives:  either  to  prevent 
a  constitutional  election,  the  House  balloting  without  choice 
until  the  4th  of  March,  or  through  the  House  to  choose  Burr 
the  constitutional  President  instead  of  Jefferson.  In  the  for 
mer  alternative  some  President  pro  tern,  of  their  own  party 
might,  they  thought,  take  the  reins  of  state,  a  bill  passing 
Congress  for  that  purpose.  This,  however,  was  revolutionary, 
and  the  Republicans  threatened  that  the  moment  such  a  bill 
was  passed  the  Middle  States  would  arm.  By  a  strange  over 
sight,  in  fact,  the  Constitution  had  made  no  provision  what 
ever  for  the  emergency  of  no  choice  by  the  House.  A  new 
convention  of  States,  Jefferson  maintained,  would  be  rcqui- 

Ilouse  would  have  elected  Pinckney.  This,  doubtless,  was  the  scheme 
intended  for  a  suitable  contingency ;  l>ut  in  fact  the  single  vote  Rhode 
Island  withheld  from  Pinckney  as  against  Adams  rendered  such  a  tie 
impossible.  Jefferson,  in  other  words,  would  have  been  elected  by  a 
majority  of  one.  Fisher  Ames  had  thought  of  such  a  tie.  Fisher 
Ames's  Works,  December,  1800.  And  see  6  Hamilton's  Works. 
*  See  Jefferson's  Works. 


484  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

site,  and  perhaps  the  two  highest  candidates  might  properly 
convene  the  new  Congress  meantime  by  joint  proclamation  ;* 
and  even  were  this  otherwise,  and  Congress  made  a  President 
pro  tern.,  a  new  election,  as  Adams  showed,  would  have  to  fol 
low,  which  would  result  in  the  choice  of  Jefferson.  This  idea 
was  therefore  discountenanced.  But  to  the  latter  alternative 
ultra  Federalists  right  willingly  inclined.  Dissensions,  they 
thought,  would  thus  be  sown  in  the  opposition  party,  and 
Burr,  chosen  by  Federalist  votes,  would  feel  bound  in  grati 
tude  to  administer  the  government  in  accordance  with  Feder 
alist  wishes. 

A  contingency  like  the  present  had  been  contemplated  by 
the  Essex  Junto  as  early  as  August. f  But,  knowing  Burr 
too  intimately  to  place  the  slightest  reliance  upon  him  or  his 
sense  of  gratitude,  Hamilton  entreated  his  friends  in  Con 
gress,  now  that  the  opportunity  had  arrived,  to  take  no  such 
fatal  step  as  either  alternative  involved,  but  rather,  electing 
Jefferson  in  the  House,  to  get  him,  if  possible,  to  pledge  him 
self  to  preserve  the  fiscal  system  and  the  navy  entire,  adhere 
to  neutrality,  and  keep  Federalists  in  the  lesser  offices.  Upon 
Bayard,  whose  single  vote  for  Delaware  might  be  decisive, 
inasmuch  as  the  House  would  vote  by  States  in  the  eventual 
choice  of  a  President,  as  the  Constitution  provided,  he  un- 
Dec  isoo  D0somed  his  feelings  most  strongly.  "I  cannot," 
he  said,  "  remain  with  a  party  which  so  degrades 
itself  as  to  elect  Burr."  There  had  been  too  much 
exaggeration,  he  thought,  to  Jefferson's  prejudice,  and  too 
much  taken  for  granted  in  Burr's  favor.  As  to  Burr,  he  is 
admitted  to  be  a  man  of  extreme  and  irregular  ambition, 
selfish  to  a  degree  excluding  all  social  affections,  and  de 
cidedly  profligate.  Federalists  had  urged  in  favor  of  sup 
porting  him  that  he  was  artful  and  dexterous  in  accomplish 
ing  ends;  yet  this  in  a  bad  man  was  an  objection.  They 
had  said  that  he  was  a  matter-of-fact  man,  and  no  pernicious 
theorist  like  Jefferson  ;  yet  a  systematic  statesman  should  have 
a  theory.  They  had  claimed  that  his  selfishness  was  a  guard, 

*  This  latter  course  was  proposed  by  Madison  and  approved  by  Jef 
ferson  as  a  possible  resort.     See  Madison's  Writings. 

f  Cabot  to  Hamilton,  August  10th,  1800;  Hamilton's  Works. 


1800-1801.  PLAN    FOR   CHOOSING   BURR.  485 

yet  calculation  might  keep  as  well  as  make  him  a  partisan. 
They  had  alleged  that  he  dwelt  in  a  locality  where  commer 
cial  and  fiscal  systems  were  appreciated,  yet  in  New  York 
were  many  leaders  who  failed  to  so  appreciate.  Burr's  elevar 
tion,  it  was  asserted,  would  be  a  stab  to  Jacobinism,  and  he 
would  have  to  lean  on  good  men  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  would 
never  lean  on  good  men,  but  try  to  disorganize  parties  and 
have  his  own  tools  about  him.  Nor  could  we  believe  that 
Burr's  ambition  would  be  restrained  by  his  good  sense,  for 
ambition  without  principle  was  never  long  under  the  guidance 
of  good  sense  ;  and,  besides,  his  good  sense  was  here  overrated, 
for  he  was  more  cunning  than  wise,  more  dexterous  than  able, 
and,  while  apparently  cold,  the  most  sanguine  man  in  the 
world.  Finally,  if  the  Federalists  elected  Burr  they  would 
make  the  party  responsible  for  him  and  his  acts,  whereas,  if 
those  who  prevailed  in  the  election  were  left  free  to  choose 
their  own  man,  they  would  be  solely  responsible  for  him,  and 
the  Federalists  might  continue  "free,  united,  and  without 
stain,  in  a  situation  to  resist  with  effect  pernicious  meas 
ures."* 

Wholesome  counsel  of  this  sort  was  thrown  away  upon  the 
more  bigoted  partisans  with  whom  Hamilton  had  corresponded, 
and  to  whom  Jefferson  seemed  atheistical,  fanatical,  or,  as 
Sedgwick  expressed  it  roundly,  "  a  semi-maniac."  Their 
arguments  for  electing  Burr  are  summarized  in  Hamilton's 
forcible  letter  to  Bayard.  These  political  guides  conceded  in 
Jefferson's  favor  the  most  pregnant  circumstance,  that  the 
electors,  if  not  the  popular  majority,  had  meant  to  make  him 
President  instead  of  Burr;  but  with  weak  sophistry  they  con 
tended  that  a  preference  so  senselessly  bestowed  ought  not  to 

*  Hamilton's  Works  ;  and  see  works  of  J  eft erson,  Madison,  and  John 
Adams. 

As  regards  Jefferson  Hamilton  expressed  himself  to  Bayard  with  far 
less  censure,  as  the  above  contrast  implies,  yet  by  no  means  flatteringly. 
Jefferson,  lie  admitted,  was  crafty,  persevering  in  his  objects,  untruth 
ful,  a  contemptible  hypocrite,  and  a  flatterer  of  the  people ;  yet  he  had 
a  good  regard  for  keeping  the  Executive  strong.  His  Gallic  fever  was 
now  much  moderated,  and  his  love  of  popularity  would  render  his  sys 
tem  temporizing  and  not  violent ;  and,  furthermore,  Jefferson  was  not  a 
corrupt  man. 


486  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

be  respected  by  them  ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  salus  populi 
should  prevail  against  vox  populi*  And  they  doubtless  had 
the  right  to  make  a  selection.  Hamilton's  campaign  indis 
cretion  was  fresh  in  the  minds  of  his  New  England  associates, 
who  likewise  inclined  to  attribute  his  warmth  against  Burr  to 
local  and  personal  feuds.  Upon  a  party  caucus,  the  Feder 
alists  in  Congress  resolved  to  elect  Burr  over  Jefferson  if  they 
could  ;  but  Bayard  and  three  other  members  of  the  House, 
any  one  of  whom  might,  as  it  proved,  decide  the  choice  for 
Jefferson  by  the  change  of  his  single  vote,  resolved  not  to 
carry  the  experiment  to  the  point  of  risking  the  failure  to 
elect  and  general  anarchy. 

Burr's  own  conduct  had  not  confirmed  the  hope  of  fidelity 
to  his  party  and  its  commander  against  the  perilous  tempta 
tion  of  a  Presidency.  Instead  of  establishing  frank  relations 
with  Jefferson,  who  tried  repeatedly  to  bring  him  to  an  ex 
plicit  understanding,  instead  of  checking  the  Federalist  in 
trigue  as  he  could  easily  have  done  by  a  determined  refusal 
to  submit  to  it  or  some  popular  appeal,  he  kept  mysteriously 
aloof,  and  while  he  appeared  to  disavow  any  intention  to  sup 
plant  Jefferson,  his  friends' gave  out  privately  that  he  would 
not  decline  the  chief  office  if  chosen  to  it.~j~ 

The  day  for  the  meeting  of  electoral  colleges  had  been 
placed  by  law  at  the  first  Wednesday  of  December, 
and  the  second  Wednesday  of  February  following 
was  the  day  fixed  for  opening  the  certificates  and  counting 
the  votes.  The  two  Houses,  both  of  them  inconveniently 
quartered  in  the  north  wing  of  the  Capitol,  assembled  on  the 
llth  of  February  in  the  Senate  Chamber  for  the  latter  pur 
pose.  The  count  of  the  tellers  showed,  as  already  anticipated, 
that  Jefferson  and  Burr  had  each  73  electoral  votes,  Adams 

*  See  Sedgwick  and  others  to  Hamilton  ;  Hamilton's  Works. 

f  See  Jefferson's  Writings  ;  Hamilton's  Works.  In  John  C.  Hamil 
ton's  Republic,  vol.  vii,  it  is  stated  against  Burr  that  he  had  tried  to  get  a 
Jefferson  vote  dropped  ont  of  the  Electoral  College  of  New  York ;  but  the 
hope  of  thus  stealing  into  the  Presidency,  if  cherished,  was  frustrated. 
The  leading  Federalists  in  Congress  gained  an  idea,  as  their  letters 
show,  that  Burr  was  not  unfavorable  to  their  plan  of  electing  him;  and 
such,  too,  was  Jefferson's  belief. 


1801.  BALLOTING   IN   THE    HOUSE.  487 

65,  Pinckney  64,  and  Jay  1.*     As  presiding  officer  of  the 
Senate  the  unwelcome  duty  devolved  upon  Jefferson  of  an 
nouncing  that  there  was  a  tie  vote  between  himself  and  Burr. 
Upon  this  announcement  the  House  returned  to  its  own  cham 
ber,  there  to  continue  in  session,  as  that  body  had     F^  g 
already  resolved,  without  proceeding  to  other  busi 
ness,  till  a  President  should  be  chosen. 

The  first  ballot  taken  was  the  test  of  comparative  strength 
as  between  the  two  rival  candidates.  The  representatives  of 
eight  States  voted  for  Jefferson  :  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Penn 
sylvania,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  and 
Tennessee.  Those  of  six  Slates  voted  for  Burr  :  New  Hamp 
shire,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Delaware, 
and  South  Carolina,  The  votes  of  both  Vermont  and  Mary 
land  were  neutralized  by  an  even  party  division  of  their  re 
spective  representatives;  indeed,  as  matters  stood,  two  mem 
bers,  a  Republican  and  a  Federalist,  responding  for  the  former 
State,  it  was  the  little  Irish  Lyon,  the  persecuted  Republican, 
who  alone  saved  New  England  from  the  historical  reproach 
of  seeking  stubbornly  and  with  unanimity  to  subvert  the  will 
of  an  electoral  majority  on  this  gravest  of  State  occasions. 

The  balloting  was  kept  up  in  this  manner  for  a  week,  the 
House  continuing  nominally  in  session  for  the  whole  time, 
though  practically  adjourning  as  convenience  demanded.  Ex 
cept  for  the  President  and  Senate  these  proceedings  were  con 
ducted  with  closed  doors.  Caucuses  of  either  party  met  from 
time  to  time.  Sick  members  were  brought  into  the  legislative 
chamber  on  their  beds  to  keep  the  vote  of  their  State  delega 
tions  under  control. 

As  days  went  on,  the  chance  appeared  less  of  electing  Burr 
upon  such  a  division  of  the  States  than  that  Congress  might 
reach  the  4th  of  March  without  electing  any  one;  and  the  fail 
ure  of  needful  legislation,  the  spectacle  of  public  disorder  and 
anarchy  in  the  central  government,  to  end,  perchance,  in  some 
new  framework  of  a  convention,  or  an  utter  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  had  already  shaken  the  great  body  of  Federalist  voters, 
who  could  see  little  to  gain  and  much  to  lose  by  pushing  a 

*  See  Table  of  Electoral  Vote,  Appendix. 


488  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

dangerous  experiment.  The  disinterested  citizens,  whose  sense 
of  fairness  had  not  slumbered,  gravitated  towards  Jefferson 
and  peace.  In  the  Federal  caucus  Bayard  had  shown  a  dis 
position  to  succumb  to  the  wishes  of  the  country,  impressed  as 
he  was  with  Hamilton's  logic,  finding,  too,  that  while  Burr 
played  his  line  nimbly  for  votes,  he  was  wary  of  pledging 
himself  to  the  voters,  and,  moreover,  becoming  convinced  that 
Jefferson  was  neither  so  unsound  nor  so  irrational  as  had  been 
imagined.  The  thirty-sixth  ballot,  taken  upon  a  hasty  con 
ference  of  the  Federalists  within  an  hour  after  the 
thirty-fifth,  ended  the  long  agony  of  suspense.  On 
this  ballot  Morris,  of  Vermont,  withdrew,  so  that  Lyon's  vote 
became  that  of  the  State  ;  the  four  Maryland  Federalists  put 
in  blanks,  whereby  the  Maryland  vote  was  cast  by  Republicans; 
the  ballot  of  Bayard,  the  sole  member  from  Delaware,  was  a 
blank  one.  Jefferson  was  chosen  President  by  the  votes  of  ten 
States,  and  Burr,  in  consequence,  became  the  Vice-President, 
as  the  Constitution  provided. 

The  Sedition  Act  being  about  to  expire,  the  ultra  Federalists 

in  Congress  sought  to  procure  its  further  extension, 

and  a  House  resolution  for  reporting  a  new  bill  was 

accordingly  passed  by  the  Speaker's  casting  vote.     The  debate 

on  this  resolution  showed,  however,  that  not  Republicans  alone, 

but  the  more  moderate  friends,  besides,  of  the  administration, 

chiefly  among  the  Federalists  of  the  South,  were 

decidedly  opposed  to  reviving  the  policy  by  which 

their  party  had  so  suffered  at  the  polls.     But  even  after  the 

Presidential  contest  was  over,  the  House,  .with  the  aid  once 

more  of  the  Speaker's  vote,  refused  to  reject  such  a 

bill,  and  the  final  defeat  of  the  measure  by  53  to  49 

was  due  to  some  changes  which  occurred  in  the  membership 

of  the  House  shortly  before  the  session  closed. 

So  persistent  an  attempt  to  perpetuate,  under  a  change  of  po 
litical  parties,  and  against  the  will  of  those  who  were  now  to  ac 
cede  to  power,  a  law  which  had  been  rendered  doubly  odious  by 
the  manner  of  its  judicial  enforcement, — for  besides  being  at  a 
serious  disadvantage,  as  we  have  seen,  in  procuring  evidence 
for  his  justification  while  executive  officers  kept  the  public 
archives  closed  against  him,  the  accused  had  not  unfrequently 


1801.          EXTENDING    THE    FEDERAL   JUDICIARY.  489 

been  hurried  by  zealous  and  severe  judges  throifgh  summons, 
indictment,  and  trial,  in  the  space  of  a  few  hours,  without 
opportunity  to  bring  absent  witnesses  or  mature  a  plan  of 
defence, — might,  perhaps,  be  attributed  to  the  disinterested 
motives  of  Federalist  leaders,  or  a  generous  consistency  of 
purpose  rarely  to  be  found  in  the  conduct  of  political  par 
ties.  For  the  nominal  tenor  of  such  legislation  would  be 
to  check  Federalists  from  criticising  a  Republican  administra 
tion.  But  the  new  Judiciary  Act,  the  crowning  Federal  meas 
ure  of  the  present  Congress,  explains  the  party  anxiety  for 
reviving  so  obnoxious  an  act  under  this  change  of  political 
supremacy. 

The  President's  recommendation  when  the  two  houses  first 
convened  in  1799,  and  the  passage  of  a  Bankrupt  Act,  have  al 
ready  been  noticed.  That  policy  of  extending  the  influence  of 
the  Federal  judiciary  was,  under  the  protection  of  a  constitu 
tional  life  tenure  in  office,  pressed  with  redoubled  vigor  by  the 
Federalists  at  the  present  session  from  the  first  moment  it  was 
perceived  that  the  Presidential  election  was  lost  to  them.  As 
an  influential  Senator  wrote  Hamilton,  now  was  the  opportu 
nity  to  anticipate  the  Republicans  in  controlling  the  bench, 
since  the  Senate  would  be  Democratic  in  two  years,  and  the 
Federalist  party  would  be  turned  into  State  legislatures  for 
further  offices.* 

":  Hence  originated,  at  a  period  of  our  history  when  only  the 
bankruptcy  business  promised  to  keep  the  United  States  dis 
trict  courts  occupied,  and  when  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
United  States  could,  besides  holding  his  circuit  and  presiding 
at  annual  terms,  depart  on  foreign  embassies  or  manage  an 
executive  department  at  the  same  time,  an  act  (short-lived  as 
it  proved)  which  created  life  offices  and  equipped  the  Federal 
judiciary  more  grandly  than  has  ever  been  known  in  this  gov 
ernment  since.  Not  only  were  the  district  courts  by  this  act 
grouped  into  circuits,  as  they  have  quite  recently  been  again, 
but  for  every  circuit  except  the  northwestern  three  circuit 


*  See  Gunn  to  Hamilton  ;  also  letters  of  Ilutledge  and  Woleott ;  Ham 
ilton's  Works,  December,  1800,  January,  1801. 


490  HISTORY   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

i 

judges  were  designated.*  New  Federal  districts  were  also 
created.  Twenty-three  new  judicial  freeholds  in  all  were  thus 
established  by  law,  besides  attorneys,  marshals,  and  clerks. 
There  were  provisions  in  the  act  as  ample  as  possible  to  facili 
tate  the  removal  of  suits  from  State  into  Federal  courts.  But 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  was  to  be  reduced  in 
number,  with  the  next  vacancy,  from  five  to  four  associate 
justices,  in  order,  as  a  glance  shows,  that  its  present  composi 
tion  might  remain  undisturbed  as  long  as  possible,  and  the  first 
Republican  President  fiud  no  opportunity  of  making  an  ap 
pointment.  Such  was  the  famous  Circuit  Court  Act,  which, 
passing  Congress  by  a  strict  party  vote,  Became  a  law  in  less 
than  three  weeks  before  Jefferson  entered  upon  the  Presiden 
tial  office,  and  whose  very  speedy  repeal  by  the  next  Congress, 
as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  entered  into  the  political  agitations 
of  the  day.f 

By  other  acts  of  this  final  session  judicial  provision  was 
made  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  the  laws  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland  being  extended  over  the  respective  portions  ceded 
by  those  States  ;J  also  for  increasing  the  salaries  of  seven 
district  judges  north  of  the  Potomac. §  Naval  reduction  to 
the  footing  of  a  peace  establishment  was  now  permitted  by 
general  consent  in  view  of  the  favorable  outlook  of  foreign 
affairs  and  the  necessity  of  greater  economy. || 

Except  for  the  merest  routine  appropriations  no  other  legis 
lation  of  importance  occurred  at  that  most  acrimonious  session. 
The  bitterness  of  party  feeling  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress 
was  shown  at  the  very  last  moment  by  the  refusal  of  the  Repub 
lican  members  to  unite  in  the  customary  resolution  of  thanks  to 
the  retiring  Speaker.  Apart  from  his  influential  agency  in  the 
intrigue  for  making  Burr  the  President  and  the  casting  votes  he 
had  given  in  favor  of  the  Sedition  Act,  Sedgwick  seriously  of- 

*  Since  1809  there  have  been  circuit  judges  once  more  for  the  United 
States  courts,  but  only  one  judge  for  each  circuit,  and  this  with  an  im 
mensely  increased  business,  including,  until  recently,  a  far  more  exten 
sive  Bankrupt  Act  than  that  of  1800. 

f  Act  February  13th,  1801.  J  Act  February  27th,  1801. 

g  Act  March  3d,  1801.  ||  Act  January  12th,  1801. 


1801.  ADAMS    AFFRONTS   JEFFERSON.  401 

fended  the  opposition  and  lowered  the  dignity  of  the  Speaker- 
ship  by  depriving  an  opposition  editor  arbitrarily  and  on  ab 
surd  grounds  of  the  customary  facilities  for  reporting  the 
debates  of  the  House  for  his  paper,  first  reprimanding  and  ex 
pelling  him  from  the  floor,  and  next  having  him  turned  sum 
marily  out  of  the  public  gallery,  to  which  he  had  retired.*  In 
his  closing  words  to  the  House  Sedgwick  announced  that  it 
was  his  own  intention  to  retire  forever  from  Congress  and 
public  life. 

If  the  administration  leaders  in  Congress  developed  by  their 
united  action  a  fixed  determination  to  stand  clear  of  respon 
sibility  for  Jefferson's  promotion  to  that  office  from  which  he 
could  not  in  honor  be  longer  excluded,"!"  and  aggravated  the 
affront  offered  to  the  country  and  an  incoming  administra 
tion  and  Congress  by  setting  up  a  judicial  place  of  retreat 
at  the  twelfth  hour,  Adams  proved  himself  their  blind  Sam 
son,  who  ground  in  the  prison-house  to  please  them  be 
fore  laying  hold  of  the  pillars  of  their  structure  and  bowing 
himself.  Foes  within  and  without  the  party  he  served  had 
been  too  much  for  his  hot,  ungovernable  temper.  He  kept 
his  old  friendship  with  Jefferson  through  the  earlier  canvass, 
accosting  him  with  blunt  good-humor  after  the  New  York 
city  electiou.J  But  irritation  upon  the  final  defeat  left  him 
in  no  mood  for  acting  the  discreet  umpire  when  his  successful 
rival  sought  him§  that  he  might  discountenance  the  Burr 
movement ;  though  Adams  appears  to  have  given  the  Feder 
alist  scheme  no  encouragement,  but  rather  the  reverse. ||  In 
stead  of  promising  to  aid  Jefferson  at  that  time,  he  petulantly 
bade  him  give  pledges  ;  and  Jefferson  as  warmly  refusing  to 
take  the  Presidency  on  capitulation,  they  parted  in  anger. 

*  This  was  the  editor  of  that  famous  newspaper,  just  established  in 
Washington,  the  National  Intelligencer.  See  Annals  of  Congress;  5 
Hildreth. 

f  It  has  been  seen  that  for  terminating  the  Presidential  contest  in 
the  House,  every  Federalist  who  did  not  vote  directly  for  Burr,  either 
withdrew  or  cast  a  blank  ballot. 

J  "  If  you  beat  me  in  the  Presidency,"  he  said,  "  I  will  be  as  faithful 
a  subject  as  any  you  will  have."  Jefferson's  Works. 

$  See  supra,  p.  483. 

||  See  Jeflerson's  Works,  1811. 


492  HISTORY  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

The  breach  widened  readily  ;  for  Adams  showed  his  successor 
the  grossest  indelicacy  by  the  final  appointments  of  his  nearly 
expired  term.  All  the  offices  under  the  new  Judiciary  and  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia  acts,  every  Executive  vacancy  upon  which 
he  could  lay  hands  up  to  the  last  moment,  he  filled  for  the 
advantage  of  his  own  party,  and  so  as  to  leave  as  little  patron 
age  as  possible  to  the  incoming  administration.  Federalists, 
many  of  them  implacable  opponents  of  Jefferson  and  the 
Republican  party,  were  selected  ;  those  for  the  lejjding  places 
to  hold  for  life,  and  many  others  for  periods  longer  than  the 
next  Presidential  term.  This  Executive  action  conformed  of 
course  to  the  wishes  of  the  Federalists  in  Congress.  A  great 
number  of  important  nominations  were  sent  to  the  Senate, 
March  2d,  and  confirmed  in  the  closing  hours  of  the  session. 

At  midnight  of  March  3d,  when  the  term  of  the  Adams  ad 
ministration  lawfully  expired,  the  Secretary  of  State  and  his 
clerks  were  found  making  out  commissions  by  candlelight; 
and  upon  Marshall's  table  lay  a  number  of  the  documents  the 
next  morning,  which  bore  the  late  President's  signature,  but 
which  the  Secretary  had  not  had  time  to  countersign.*  And 
the  sunrise  of  March  4th  saw  the  ex-President  hastening  out 
of  the  wooded  capital  by  carriage  in  no  philosophic  frame  of 
mind  ;  and,  as  a  last  affront  to  the  incoming  administration, 
commencing  his  homeward  journey,  to  Quincy,  on  a  day  and 
at  an  hour  which  must  have  precluded  the  decent  decorum 
of  giving  his  personal  attendance  at  the  inaugural  ceremonies 
of  his  official  successor. 

Thus  expired  one  of  the  stormiest  administrations  as  yet 
known  in  our  constitutional  history ;  an  administration  whose 
worst  errors  were  enough  to  condemn  it  at  the  bar  of  public 
opinion,  and  whose  best  achievements,  through  the  strange 
perversity  of  party  leaders,  served  but  to  hasten  its  downfall. 

*  The  story  is,  that  at  the  stroke  of  twelve  on  the  night  of  March  3d, 
Levi  Lincoln,  Jefferson's  Attorney-General,  entered  the  Secretary  of 
State's  private  office  with  the  new  President's  watch  in  his  hand,  and 
stopped  Marshall  at  his  work  ;  and  that  Marshall  took  up  his  hat  and 
left  the  unsigned  commissions  behind  him.  See  Purton's  Jefferson; 
Jefferson's  Domestic  Life. 


1801.        ADAMS'S  ADMINISTRATION  REVIEWED.         493 

This  four  years'  term  stands  conspicuous  for  the  extrication 
of  a  foreign  entanglement,  derived  from  the  preceding  term, 
whose  glory,  however,  redounded  to  the  next;  for  spanning,  as 
it  were,  a  fierce  torrent,  that  peace  might  cross  over  dry-shod. 
The  ill-success  of  the  Presidency  of  John  Adams,  regarded 
from  a  personal  and  party  standpoint, — for  in  respect  of  the 
nation's  interests  it  was  by  no  means  a  failure, — we  may  trace 
in  part  to  theoinfortunate  circumstances  by  which  Adams  was 
surrounded,  ajkl  in  part  to  faults  inseparable  from  his  head 
strong  and  oBinal  character.  He  was  unfortunate,  first  of 
all,  in  being  the  immediate  successor  of  a  President  so  tran 
scendent  in  all  those  qualities  which  mark  the  practical  ad 
ministrator  and  command  confidence  as  Washington  ;  a  suc 
cessor,  too,  the  first  of  that  style,  and  committed  substantially 
to  the  same  line  of  policy  and  dependent  upon  the  same  ele 
ments  for  active  political  support.  It  was  a  lengthening 
shadow  that  his  more  illustrious  predecessor  cast  down  nearly 
his  whole  official  pathway  ;  and  for  the  year  which  followed 
Washington's  death — the  last  months  nearly  of  this  present 
administration — the  public  grief  was  too  great  for  even  an 
Adams  to  assuage  or  divert  it.  The  new  President  followed 
the  old,  therefore,  seemingly  at  a  long  distance  for  the  whole 
round,  and  was  forced  to  perform  various  deferential  tasks 
which  only  a  spirit  modest,  venerating,  and  unenvious  could 
have  performed  with  cheerfulness.  Adams  was  next  unfor 
tunate  in  inheriting  from  that  former  administration,  admir 
able  as  it  had  been  in  most  respects,  its  very  serious  embar 
rassment  with  France,  which,  complicated  as  it  became  by 
Talleyrand's  misconduct,  was  not  at  length  overcome  without 
causing  a  sudden,  almost  ludicrous,  collapse  of  warlike  enthu 
siasm  on  the  part  of  our  people  ;  while  subjecting  them  to  those 
very  serious  accompaniments  of  war,  lavish  expenditure,  bur 
densome  taxation,  internal  oppression,  and  breeding,  besides, 
in  the  minds  of  influential  partisans,  those  fancies  of  feverish 
ambition  which  are  not  easily  dismissed.  Adams  was  finally 
unfortunate  in  having  been  promoted  to  the  command  of  po 
litical  chieftains  who  neither  implicitly  trusted  him  nor  per 
formed  loyal  service ;  of  a  party  remarkably  intelligent,  yet 
undisciplined,  and  liable  to  be  led  astray  by  malignant  influ- 


494  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

ences ;  and  of  Cabinet  counsellors,  unworthy  the  name,  who 
set  up  for  planets  when  they  should  have  revolved  as  satel 
lites. 

But  to  a  considerable  degree  John  Adams  was  his  own 
worst  enemy  for  bearing  successfully  the  responsibilities  of 
Chief  Magistrate  under  an  elective  government  like  ours. 
He  was  vain,  jealous  of  rivals,  ready  to  suspect  the  worst 
where  he  suspected  at  all,  over-imaginative,  irascible,  stub 
born,  impatient  of  advice,  apt  to  push  his  waAin  blind  rage 
and  regardless  of  consequences  where  his  tem]^Pwas  aroused. 
Such  an  Executive  is  not  easily  influenced  for^food  except  by 
those  who  humor  him  in  his  moods  and  take  care  not  to  cross 
his  prerogative;  others  may  impress,  indeed,  if  their  views 
are  sound,  but  not  correspondingly.  The  brusque  manners 
of  Adams,  his  imprudence  of  expression,  and  indiscreet  plain 
speaking,  though  not  necessarily  offensive  to  personal  friends 
and  equals  who  could  take  him  as  he  meant,  were  to  most 
men,  especially  while  Adams  occupied  the  highest  dignity  in 
the  land  and  stood  without  official  equal,  an  obstacle  to  free 
intercourse  and  the  mutual  interchange  of  opinions.  Unlike 
Washington,  who  so  sedulously  sought  advice,  the  new  President 
seemed  to  confer  with  others  rather  for  the  purpose  of  imparting 
his  own  views,  and  those  most  likely  in  the  crude,  and  be 
fore  gaining  possession  of  all  the  data  needful;  and  he  had 
that  tendency,  so  disagreeable  to  one  who  brings  suggestions, 
of  talking  others  down.  Advice  worked  upon  him,  but  by 
what  process  was  not  sufficiently  obvious  to  flatter  the  person 
offering  it,  since  the  first  impression  conveyed  to  Adams's 
mind  by  the  tender  of  counsel  appeared  to  be  the  disagreeable 
one  that  he  stood  sadly  in  need  of  it;  and  hence,  while  the 
admonition  might  sink  deep,  the  person  admonishing  became 
painfully  conscious  of  striking  at  once  upon  an  envious  and 
sensitive  surface,  which  emitted  angry  sparks  as  from  a  flint. 
In  this  important  respect  our  two  earliest  Presidents  strongly 
contrasted,  and  so,  too,  in  those  lesser  courtesies  of  life  such 
as  draw  closer  or  soothe  irritation ;  for  while  the  one  could 
by  his  suavity  conquer  an  ei*emy,  the  other  imperilled  the 
most  essential  friendship  of  his  term  by  his  jealous  or  heed 
less  inattention. 


1801.  CHAKACTER   OF   JOHN   ADAMS.  495 

The  honest,  simple  frankness  of  Adams's  nature  was  the 
main  obstacle  to  the  display  of  that  light  polish  of  daily  life 
which  lends  such  a  charm  to  urbanity,  well  as  he  could 
comport  himself  on  great  occasions ;  but  other  traits  inter 
fered  with  such  amenities,  not  so  creditable  to  him.  If  it  be 
not  literally  true,  as  some  opine,*  that  Adams,  as  President, 
would  make  an  odious  measure  more  odious  still  by  his  man 
ner  of  executing  it,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that,  at  least, 
he  too  often  displayed  *an  unfortunate  capacity  for  taking  all 
the  grace  out  of  a  kindly  and  favoring  action,  and  stifling  all 
sense  of  gratitude  in  the  recipient,  by  the  unkindly  or  ungra 
cious  manner  in  which  he  performed  it.  However  near  he 
might  have  ventured  to  the  ground  of  the  opposition  at  times, 
away  from  his  own  party  lines,  he  seemed  to  feel  it  as  neces 
sary  to  deride  their  position  as  the  party  Federalist,  who, 
more  consistent,  blamed  him  for  wandering  thither. 

What  exposed  Adams  all  the  more  readily  to  censure  and' 
misapprehension  was  his  constant  indisposition  in  private 
speech  to  acknowledge  to  their  full  the  broad  and  lofty  mo 
tives  which  impelled  his  public  conduct,  as  though  once  again 
to  point  a  contrast  with  his  predecessor,  whose  calm  morality 
was  too  much  a  matter  of  principle  for  him  to  think  of  being 
shamefaced  over  it.  Adams,  pure,  disinterested,  upright,  as 
we  must  conceive  him  in  the  main,  had  yet  that  dread  of  cant 
which  marks  a  faulty  but  heroic  nature  struggling  with  itself 
and  yielding  much  to  impulse.  Hence  in  the  effort  not  to 
seem  better  than  he  really  was,  he  managed  at  times  to  appear 
much  worse,  giving  partial,  trivial,  unsatisfactory  reasons  to 
others  for  acts  which  some  strong  conviction  of  right,  some 
brave  resolution  welling  from  the  lower  depths  of  his  gener 
ous  and  independent  nature,  must  have  led  him  to  perform. 
He  would  talk  like  a  Diogenes  of  men  and  motives,  and  pro 
fess  his  utter  contempt  for  the  public  whose  interests  he  was 
doubtless  serving  with  all  his  might.  His  ambition  for  dis 
tinction  was  both  purer  and  more  intense  than  he  owned  to 
himself. 


*  See  Van  Buren's  Political  Parties.  His  course  as  to  the  Alien  Act 
and  treason  prosecutions,  and  in  several  points  relative  to  the  French 
embroilment,  controvert  such  an  opinion,  as  the  foregoing  pages  show. 


496  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

Adams  was,  as  those  who  knew  him  best  had  observed  be 
fore  his  present  elevation,  a  bad  calculator  of  the  probable 
motives  of  other  men,  nor  possessed  of  the  requisite  skill  for 
managing  them.  Vehement  as  he  had  been  in  earlier  years, 
so  as  to  move  these  Colonies  to  declare  for  independence,  it 
was  his  eloquence,  his  scholarship,  his  literary  abilities,  and 
the  earnestness  of  his  conviction  as  one  of  a  deliberative  body 
among  his  peers  that  carried  persuasion.  When  it  came  to 
Executive  duties  and  being  looked  up  to  as  a  political  com 
mander,  the  conditions  of  success  were  very  different.  Adams 
was  not  steady  and  sure  in  his  guidance,  nor  sufficiently  in  the 
habit  of  directing  other  minds  to  impress  a  policy  upon  those 
without  whose  willing  co-operation  it  must  fail.  Rather  did 
he  let  affairs  drift  so  far  as  legislators  might  have  the  power 
of  control,  while  he,  for  his  part,  regulated  his  own  depart 
ment,  and  most  especially  the  diplomatic  part  of  it,  with  a  pre 
dilection  for  managing  it  as  he  might  see  fit.  As  all  worked 
apart  so  much,  the  legislature  not  consorting  with  the  Execu 
tive,  and  the  Executive  uninfluential  in  the  legislature,  his 
most  desired  measures  passed  with  difficulty,  while  other  acts 
went  through  Congress  imposing  onerous  and  unpopular  du 
ties  upon  him,  which  he  appears  to  have  had  no  special  influ 
ence  in  shaping,  but  for  which,  withholding  his  veto,  he  ap 
peared  to  the  ungrateful  public  willing  enough  to  take  more 
than  his  share  as  sponsor.  With  more  culpable  indiscretion 
he  permitted  official  subordinates,  stern,  narrow-minded,  and 
moreover  interested  in  their  motives,  to  present  to  the  country 
an  administration  far  more  spiteful  and  intolerant  than  he  de 
sired  it,  and  less  dispassionate  in  its  foreign  policy.  Eccentric 
movements,  sudden  starts,  inconsistent  turnings  perplexed  the 
spectator;  and  this  happened  because  the  reins  were  han 
dled  by  too  many  Phaetons,  while  Phoebus  took  his  vacation 
and  exercised  only  a  sort  of  intermittent  authority.  For  in 
stead  of  allotting  to  each  subordinate  his  just  responsibility 
within  his  own  sphere  and  prescribing  the  rules  for  all,  and  tak 
ing  personal  heed  to  the  whole  business  of  the  Executive,  the 
President  would  let  department  heads  combine  to  pull  the  ad 
ministration,  with  outside  assistance,  in  whatever  direction  they 
might,  until  they  got  so  far  wrong  that  he  had  to  interpose 


1801.  CHARACTER   OF   JOHN   ADAMS.  497 

again  to  set  things  as  they  should  be.  All  this  was  partly 
because  of  his  laxness  as  a  disciplinarian,  his  indolence,  his 
inaptitude  for  organizing,  his  indifference  to  routine  details, 
his  unbusinesslike  habits ;  and,  as  we  may  further  apprehend, 
too,  because  Adams,  somewhat  aware  of  his  own  shortcomings 
in  respect  of  moulding  and  conciliating  other  minds  so  as  to 
keep  the  topmost  place  securely  in  a  political  party,  schooled 
himself  in  such  a  sense  as  to  give  others  their  unhindered  way 
with  whom  he  thought  it  impolitic  to  break,  but  whose  opin 
ions  he  knew  not  how  to  respect,  nor  how  to  adapt  their  pub 
lic  ends  to  the  promotion  of  those  he  desired  himself  to  pur 
sue.  While  Washington  had  kept  all  things,  great  and  small, 
under  counsel,  Adams  worked  without  system  or  vigilance  in 
weeding  out  small  abuses.  With  a  mind  too  vigorous  to  feel 
the  need  of  another's  advice,  Adams  carelessly  suffered  Cabi 
net  officers  to  form  their  own  plans  while  he  matured  his,  and 
thus  did  he  encourage  others  unintentionally  to  misrepresent 
and  misdirect  his  policy  and  lead  the  general  public  to  false 
estimates  of  his  probable  conduct.  It  was  with  reference,  per 
haps,  to  his  proueuess  for  producing  such  external  misconcep 
tions,  as  well  as  to  those  fitful  gusts  of  temper  and  specula 
tions  which  caused  him  so  to  veer  in  his  solitary  course,  that 
the  sagacious  Franklin  once  made  the  remark,  of  late  fre 
quently  repeated  by  his  political  enemies,  that  Adams  was 
"always  an  honest  man,  often  a  wise  one,  but  sometimes 
wholly  out  of  his  senses." 

Adams  had,  nevertheless,  great  virtues  as  well  as  great  fail 
ings.  Ambitious  though  he  might  be,  he  was  the  soul  of  earn 
est  patriotism,  and  his  ideal  always  a  lofty  one,  even  should 
execution  fall  short  of  it.  An  accomplished  scholar,  a  states 
man  who  had  experienced  much  and  travelled  far,  one  of  a 
vigorous  and  far-reaching  intellect,  he  comprehended  with 
great  wisdom  the  most  difficult  problems  which  his  adminis 
tration  encountered.  With  all  his  neglectof  the  small  things, 
he  had,  doubtless,  more  than  others  appreciated,  a  fixed  system 
as  to  the  great;  and  this  in  his  foreign  policy  most  particularly, 
whose  management  he  reserved  peculiarly  to  himself,  aware, 
doubtless,  of  the  delicacy  required  in  so  grave  a  situation,  and 
confident  that  he  understood  European  politics  and  diplomacy 
VOL.  i. — 42 


498  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

better  than  any  of  his  advisers.  The  general  maxims  he  pre 
scribed  in  his  inaugural  address  were  admirable.  Adams  may 
fairly  be  styled  the  father  of  our  American  navy,  for  to  his 
perseverance  and  steady  interest  in  its  establishment  we  owe 
it  that  this  arm  of  the  service  was  placed  for  the  first  time 
upon  a  substantial  and  permanent  footing.  His  penetrating 
mind  had  discovered,  quite  in  advance  of  his  times,  that  the 
belligerents  of  the  Old  World  would  not  respect  American 
commerce  while  it  remained  defenceless,  and  that  the  first  suc 
cessful  war  with  France  or  England  must  be  waged  by  us  be 
hind  wooden  walls  rather  than  ramparts. 

Whimsical  and  wrong-headed  as  Adams  might  be  when  the 
vapors  of  a  wounded  self  esteem  steamed  up  and  beclouded  his 
vision,  he  was,  apart  from  his  peculiar  foibles,  consistent,  just  and 
upright;  broad  in  his  views  and  singularly  disinterested.  He 
was  a  statesman  whose  general  honesty  of  purpose  could  always 
be  relied  upon  ;  magnanimous  when  calm ;  disposed,  though 
combative  of  disposition,  to  make  amends  where  he  had  acted 
hastily  and  passionately,  and  consorting  with  men  of  liberal 
and  enlightened  views.  Nearly  all  of  the  great  appointments 
to  office  during  his  term  which  were  purely  of  his  own  selec 
tion  were  not  merely  good  but  excellent,  and  worthy  of  com 
parison  with  any  made  by  his  predecessor  ;  those,  for  in 
stance,  of  Marshall  (whose  rapid  advancement  in  public 
station  was  owing  largely  to  the  favor  of  our  second  President), 
Stoddert,  and  Dexter ;  of  both  sets  of  envoys  to  France,  Gerry 
possibly  excepted,  and  of  the  naval  commanders.  His  admi 
rable  qualities  as  a  husband  and  father,  his  fondness  for  his 
farm,  and  the  bosom  confidence  which  he  bestowed  upon  those 
at  home,  of  his  hopes  and  disappointments,  attest  the  healthi 
ness  of  his  moral  nature;  though  one  must  admit  that  his 
private  virtues  \\ere  not  practised  without  some  public  detri 
ment,  inasmuch  as  long  absence  from  his  duties  obstructed 
business,  and  his  ambition  to  found  a  family  conspicuous  in 
national  station  exposed  him  to  the  imputation  of  repotism.* 

*  The  advancement  of  his  son,  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was  already 
in  the  diplomatic  service,  may  well  be  excused  as  the  merited  promotion 
of  an  accomplished  and  useful  officer.  Not  so,  however,  his  repeated 
feathering  of  a  nest  for  a  prodigal  son-in-law  who  was  of  no  credit  to  the 


1801.        CHARACTER  OF  JOHN  ADAMS. 

Except  for  some  ill-considered  utterances  in  the  season  of 
war  fever,  his  state  papers,  messages,  and  addresses  were  lofty 
and  well  expressed,  with  clear,  terse,  ringing  words  and  sen 
tences,  eminently  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  sure  to  pro 
duce  a  popular  impression  ;  and  his  bearing  in  public  was  dig 
nified  and  manly,  the  more  pleasing  to  his  countrymen  now 
that  he  had  lowered  the  standard  of  courtly  etiquette  with  which 
he  had  set  out  as  Vice-President.  He  maintained  well  the 
bearing  of  an  American  Chief  Executive  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people  so  far  as  one,  whose  bravery  was  that  of  an  eminent 
civilian  alone,  might  be  expected  to.  An  Adams  could  stand 
courageously  even  when  he  had  to  stand  alone  ;  no  better  proof 
of  which  need  be  recalled  than  the  grandly  independent  and 
fearless  course  he  took  in  sending  his  second  and  successful 
embassy  to  France  in  1799,  giving  peace  and  unexampled 
prosperity  to  his  country,  (as  he  asserted  later)  against  the  ad 
vice,  entreaties,  and  intrigues  of  his  ministers  and  all  the  lead 
ing  Federalists  in  both  houses  of  Congress.  This,  the  most 
questioned  of  all  his  actions,  for  which  his  breast  received  the 
poisoned  arrows  of  malicious  foes  within  his  own  party  years 
after  his  unwelcome  retirement  from  public  station,  was  (if  we 
except  the  burning  record  of  1776)  "  the  most  disinterested, 
the  most  determined,  prudent,  and  successful  of  his  whole 

life." 

With  all  his  speculative  tendencies  unfavorable  to  Repub 
lican  experiments,  his  preference  for  a  strong  government  and 
executive  power,  John  Adams  was  in  closer  sympathy  with  the 

nation  that  had  to  furnish  his  stipend.  A  more  distant  family  connection 
received,  not  unworthily,  a  judicial  office  of  life  tenure.  The  case  against 
Adams  has  been  stated,  however,  too  strongly  by  some  contemporaries 
inimical  to  him.  Hamilton  solicited  and  procured  commissions  for  young 
relatives  while  the  new  army  and  navy  were  being  officered.  Pickering 
had  a  son  with  King  on  the  English  mission.  Many  Federalists,  ap 
pointed  to  the  bench  or  in  the  State  service,  inclined  tit  this  time  to  be 
stow  their  own  patronage  upon  kinsmen.  The  family  transmission  of 
offices  was,  in  fact,  a  British  trait  by  no  means  unfamiliar  in  America  in 
these  days.  Franklin  had  displayed  it  in  a  conspicuous  instance,  and 
though  Washington  was  personally  free  from  nepotism,  collateral  kin- 
drod  gained  Federal  offices  the  more  readily  because  they  bore  his 
name. 


500  HISTORY   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.      CHAP.  IV. 

people  than  most  leaders  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged, 
and  a  more  genuine  American.  Hateful  of  European  govern 
ments  alike,  beloved  his  country  best  of  all.  To  be  "-king  of 
the  commons/'  in  a  practical  sense,  would  not  have  ill-chimed 
with  his  ambitious  fancies;  but  monarchist  he  could  not  be  at 
heart  in  the  United  States,  and  he  became  well-nigh  a  Jeffer 
son  ian  Republican  before  he  died. 

The  Federalist  party,  indeed,  was  already  too  cramped  a 
vessel  to  hold  him.  That  party  had  done  its  greatest  and 
fittest  work  by  the  time  it  accomplished  its  earliest:  namely, 
that  of  framing  and  establishing  the  more  perfect  Union, 
which,  with  later  changes,  has  stood  ever  since  secure.  Public 
gratitude,  and  the  disorganization  of  political  opponents,  pro 
cured  a  continuance  in  power  under  the  wing  of  Washington 
sufficiently  long  for  establishing  the  public  credit,  developing 
the  resources  of  a  new.  nation,  concluding  peace  with  the  In 
dians  and  European  countries,  and  raising  the  United  States 
to  a  respectable  position  before  the  civilized  world.  But  while 
each  new  chamber  was  added  to  the  shell,  the  nautilus  had 
been  working  out.  Great  leaders  had  left  the  party,  and  by 
the  time  Washington  died  and  the  last  treaty  was  ratified 
under  a  successor,  which  detached  the  American  Union  from 
the  European  war,  all  the  vitality  which  beautified  Federal 
ism  was  gone.  '  Claims  it  certainly  had  still  to  public  grati 
tude  ;  but  gratitude  for  the  past  will  not  preserve  that  party 
in  the  public  estimation  which  lags  in  the  work  of  the  imme 
diate  present.  Already  had  the  political  leaders  with  whom 
Federalism  was  now  most  identified  taken  to  preparing  feigned 
issues  to  supply  the  want  of  genuine  ones,  and  striving  by 
playing  upon  the  wildest  fears  and  prejudices  of  the  multitude 
to  perpetuate  themselves  and  their  party  in  power.  The 
bickerings  of  great  rivals,  the  bureau  intrigues  against  Adams 
and  that  foreign  policy  of  pacification  which  the  country  most 
desired,  the  centralizing  schemes,  the  usurious  loans,  the  high 
salaries,  the  multiplicity  of  offices,  the  taxes,  the  exhausting 
war  preparations  without  an  enemy  in  sight,  the  provisional 
armies— 'all  this,  even  such  of  it  as  prudence  might  well  have 
justified,  was  lead  to  the  neck  of  the  party  which  struggled  to 
bear  up  the  general  responsibilities  through  an  angry  sea. 


1801.  DOWNFALL   OF   FEDERALISM.  501 

No  political  party  in  a  time  of  popular  commotion  could 
ever  boast  in  America  a  more  splendid  body  of  voters ;  social 
rank,  talent,  wealth,  learning,  supported  Federalism,  in  New 
England  more  especially.  But  in  that  same  section  where 
the  brain  of  the  party  was  located,  and  among  those  whom 
Hamilton  chiefly  influenced,  were  to  be  seen  too  many  leaders 
whose  tastes  were  infallibly  to  keeping  up  a  rule  of  social  caste, 
and  who  despised  too  greatly  our  essay  at  self-rule  and  the 
sense  of  a  commonalty.  A  government  like  ours  could  not 
walk  alone,  they  thought,  nor  hardly  stand,  and  they  must 
guide  its  footsteps.  The  time  had  now  come  when  political 
nurses  could  be  dispensed  with,  and  a  healthy,  robust  public 
opinion  allowed  an  opportunity  to  develope.  The  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws,  all  that  machinery  for  compulsory  discipline, 
tottered  to  the  ground,  carrying  those  who  had  sought  to  erect 
it.  Federalism  was  lost  in  the  first  hour  of  its  absolute 
supremacy,  and  as  soon  as  it  essayed  in  earnest  to  rule  the 
American  people  by  its  own  effete  maxims. 

Unfitted  by  temperament  for  dealing  with  the  new  con 
ditions  presented  in  the  constitutional  American  experiment, 
bewildered,  indocile,  as  little  capable  of  playing  sycophant  to 
the  common  mass  as  of  believing  io  a  self-constrained  democ 
racy,  the  leaders  hitherto  prominent  in  national  affairs  soon  dis 
appeared  from  the  scene,  or  remained  to  play  the  part  of  useless 
obstructors.  Some  of  the  greatest  Federalists  withdrew  into 
the  Judiciary  Department,  there  to  escape  political  responsi 
bility.  Others  became  governors  and  legislators  in  their 
native  States.  Wrapping  himself  in  his  mantle  of  pride, 
the  Bourbon  Federalist  watched  wearily  for  Jacobinism  to 
run  out  its  course.  The  sun  of  Federalism  had  sunk  forever, 
going  down  in  the  murky  sunset  of  its  discreditable  Presiden 
tial  intrigues.  The  first  national  party  to  conduct  the  affairs 
of  this  Constitutional  Union  expired  with  the  administration 
of  the  second  President.  Hushed  was  its  voice  of  command. 
And  yet  so  constantly  had  it  ruled,  so  firmly,  and  in  the  main 
so  beneficently,  even  when  despotically,  that  men  gathered  in 
its  death-chamber  like  that  of  the  great  Roman  emperor,  and 
tendered  their  homage  to  the  illustrious  remains  as  they  lay  in 
solemn  poinp,  long  after  the  last  vital  breath  had  departed. 


APPENDIX; 


A.— CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA. 

We,  the  People  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union, 
establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common 
defence,  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution 
for  the  United  States  of  A  merica. 

ARTICLE  I. 

SECTION  I. — All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in 
a  Congress  of  the  United  States,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives. 

SEC.  II. — 1.  The  House  of  Eepresentatives  shall  be  composed  of 
members  chosen  every  second  year  by  the  people  of  the  several  States, 
and  the  electors  in  each  State  shall  have  the  qualifications  requisite  for 
electors  of  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the  State  legislature. 

2.  No  person  shall  be  a  representative  who  shall  not  have  attained  to 
the  age  of  twenty-five  years,  and  been  seven  years  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States:,  and  who  shall  not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  that  State 
in  which  he  shall  be  chosen. 

3.  Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  apportioned  among  the 
several  States  which  may  be  included  within  this  Union,  according  to 
their  respective  numbers,  which  shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the 
whole  number  of  free  persons,  including  those  bound  to  service  for  a 
term  of  years,  and  excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  three-fifths  of  all  other 
persons.     The  actual  enumeration  shall  be  made  within   three   years 
after  the  first  meeting  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  within 
every  subsequent  term  often  years,  in  such  manner  as  they  shall  by  law 
direct.     The  number  of  representatives  shall  not  exceed  one  for  every 
thirty  thousand,  but  each  State  shall  have  at  least  one  representative; 
and  until  such  enumeration  shall  be  made,  the  State  of  New  Hampshire 

*  The  notes  and  tables  of  this  Appendix  were  prepared  for  the 
American  Almanac  by  Ainsworth  E-.  SpofFord,  Librarian  of  Congress. 


504  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

shall  be  entitled  to  choose  three ;  Massachusetts,  eight ;  Rhode  Island 
and  Providence  Plantations,  one  ;  Connecticut,  five ;  New  York,  six ; 
New  Jersey,  four ;  Pennsylvania,  eight ;  Delaware,  one  ;  Maryland,  six ; 
Virginia,  ten  ;  North  Carolina,  five  ;  South  Carolina,  five  ;  and  Georgia, 
three. 

4.  When  vacancies  happen  in  the  representation  from  any  State,  the 
executive  authority  thereof  shall  issue  writs   of  election    to  fill  such 
vacancies. 

5.  The  House  of  Representatives  shall  choose  their  speaker  and  other 
officers;  and  shall  have  the  sole  power  of  impeachment. 

SEC.  III.— 1.  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  shall  he  composed  of 
two  senators  from  each  State,  chosen  by  the  legislature  thereof,  for  six 
years  ;  and  each  senator  shall  have  one  vote. 

2.  Immediately  after  they  shall  be  assembled  in  consequence  of  the 
first  election,  they  shall  be  divided  as  equally  as   may  be  into  three 
classes.     The  seats  of  the  senators  of  the  first  class  shall  be  vacated  at 
the  expiration  of  the  second  year,  of  the  second  class  at  the  expiration 
of  the  fourth  year,  and  of  the  third  class  at  the  expiration  of  the  sixth 
year,  so  that  one-third  may  be  chosen  every  second  year ;  and  if  vacan 
cies  happen  by  resignation,  or  otherwise,  during  the  recess  of  the  legis 
lature  of  any  State,  the  executive  thereof  may  make  temporary  appoint 
ments  until  the  next  meeting  of  the  legislature,  which  shall  then  fill 
such  vacancies. 

3.  No  person  shall  be  a  senator  who  shall  not  have  attained  the  age 
of  thirty  years,  and  been  nine  years  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and 
who  shall  not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  that  State  for  which  he 
shall  be  chosen. 

4.  The  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  shall  be  President  of  the 
Senate,  but  shall  have  no  vote,  unless  they  be  equally  divided. 

5.  The  Senate  shall  choose  their  other  officers,  and  also  a  president 
pro  tempore,  in  the  absence  of  the  Vice-President,  or  when  he  shall 
exercise  the  office  of  President  of  the  United  States. 

6.  The  Senate  shall  have  the  sole  power  to  try  all  impeachments. 
When  sitting  for  that  purpose,  they  shall  be  on  oath  or  affirmation. 
When  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  tried,  the  Chief  Justice  shall 
preside ;  and  no  person  shall  be  convicted  without  the  concurrence  of 
two-thirds  of  the  members  present. 

7.  Judgment  in  cases  of  impeachment  shall  not  extend  further  than 
to  removal  from  office,  and  disqualification  to  hold  and  enjoy  any  office 
of  honor,  trust,  or  profit  under  the  United  States ;  but  the  party  con 
victed  shall  nevertheless  be  liable  and  subject  to  indictment,  trial,  judg 
ment,  and  punishment,  according  to  law. 

SEC.  IV. — 1.  The  times,  places,  and  manner  of  holding  elections  for 
senators  and  representatives,  shall  be  prescribed  in  the  State  by  the 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  505 

legislature  thereof;  but  the  Congress  may  at  any  time  by  law  make  or 
alter  such  regulations,  except  as  to  the  places  of  choosing  senators. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  assemble  at  least  once  in  every  year,  and  such 
meeting  shall  be  on  the  first  Monday  in  December,  unless  they  shall  by 
law  appoint  a  different  day. 

SEC.  V. — 1.  Each  house  shall  be  judge  of  the  elections,  returns  and 
qualifications  of  its  own  members,  and  a  majority  of  each  shall  consti 
tute  a  quorum  to  do  business;  but  a  smaller  number  may  adjourn  from 
day  to  day,  and  may  be  authorized  to  compel  the  attendance  of  absent 
members,  in  such  manner,  and  under  such  penalties  as  each  house  may 
provide. 

2.  Each  house  may  determine  the  rules  of  its  proceedings,  punish  its 
members  for  disorderly  behavior,   and,  with  the  concurrence  of  two- 
thirds,  expel  a  member. 

3.  Each  house  shall  keep  a  journal  of  its  proceedings,  and  from  time 
to  time  publish  the  same,  excepting  such  parts  as  may  in  their  judgment 
require  secrecy  ;  and  the  yeas  and  nays  of  the  members  of  either  house 
on  any  question  shall,  at  the  desire  of  one-fifth  of  those  present,  be 
entered  on  the  journal. 

4.  Neither  house,  during  the  session  of  Congress,  shall,  without  the 
consent  of  the  other,  adjourn  for  more  than  three  days,  nor  to  any  other 
place  than  that  in  which  the  two  houses  shall  be  sitting. 

SEC.  VI. — 1.  The  senators  and  representatives  shall  receive  a  compen 
sation  for  their  services,  to  be  ascertained  by  law,  and  paid  out  of  the 
treasury  of  the  United  States.  They  shall  in  all  cases,  except  treason, 
felony,  and  breach  of  the  peace,  be  privileged  from  arrest  during  their 
attendance  at  the  session  of  their  respective  houses,  and  in  going  to  and 
returning  from  the  same  ;  and  for  any  speech  or  debate  in  either  house, 
they  shall  not  be  questioned  in  any  other  place. 

2.  No  senator  or  representative  shall,  during  the  time  for  which 
he  was  elected,  be  appointed  to  any  civil  office  under  the  authority  of 
the  United  States,  which  shall  have  been  created,  or  the  emoluments 
whereof  shall  have  been  increased  during  such  time  ;  and  no  person 
holding  any  office  under  the  United  States,  shall  be  a  member  of  either 
house  during  his  continuance  in  office. 

SEC.  VII. — 1.  All  bills  for  raising  revenue  shall  originate  in  the 
House  of  Representatives ;  but  the  Senate  may  propose  or  concur  with 
amendments  as  on  other  bills. 

2.  Every  bill  which  shall  have  passed  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  the  Senate,  shall,  before  it  become  a  law,  be  presented  to  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States;  if  he  approve  he  shall  sign  it  ;  but  if  not  he 
shall  return  it,  with  his  objections,  to  that  house  in  which  it  shall  have 
originated,  who  shall  enter  the  objections  at  large  on  their  journal,  and 
VOL.  i. — 43 


506  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES. 

proceed  to  reconsider  it.  If  after  such  reconsideration  two-thirds  of  that 
house  shall  agree  to  pass  the  bill,  it  shall  be  sent,  together  with  the  oh- 
jections,  to  the  other  house,  by  which  it  shall  likewise  be  reconsidered, 
and  if  approved  by  two-thirds  of  that  house,  it  shall  become  a  law.  But 
in  all  such  cases  the  votes  of  both  houses  shall  be  determined  by  yeas 
and  nays,  and  the  names  of  the  persons  voting  for  and  against  the  bill 
shall  be  entered  on  the  journal  of  each  house  respectively.  If  any  bill 
shall  not  be  returned  by  the  President  within  tea  days  (Sundays  ex- 
cepted)  after  it  shall  have  been  presented  to  him,  the  same  shall  be  a 
law,  in  like  manner  as  if  he  had  signed  it,  unless  the  Congress  by  their 
adjournment  prevent  its  return,  in  which  case  it  shall  not  be  a  law. 

3.  Every  order,  resolution,  or  vote  to  which  the  concurrence  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Kepresentatives  may  be  necessary  (except  on  a 
question  of  adjournment)  shall  be  presented  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States ;  and  before  the  same  shall  take  effect,  shall  be  approved 
by  him,  or  being  disapproved  by  him,  shall  be  repassed  by  two-thirds 
of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  according  to  the  rules  and 
limitations  prescribed  in  the  case  of  a  bill. 

SEC.  VIII. — The  Congress  shall  have  power — 

1.  To  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to   pay  the 
debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and  general  welfare  of  the 
United  States;  but  all  duties,  imposts,  and  excises  shall  be  uniform 
throughout  the  United  States ; 

2.  To  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States  ; 

3.  To  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among  the  several 
States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes  ; 

4.  To  establish  a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization,  and  uniform  laws 
on  the  subject  of  bankruptcies  throughout  the  United  States ; 

5.  To  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign  coin,  and 
fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures; 

C.  To  provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting  the  securities  and 
current  coin  of  the  United  States  ; 

7.  To  establish  post-offices  and  post-roads  ; 

8.  To  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts,  by  securing  for 
limited  times  to  authors  and  inventors  the  exclusive  right  to  their  re 
spective  writings  and  discoveries ; 

9.  To  constitute  tribunals  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court ; 

10.  To  define  and  punish  piracies *and  felonies  committed  on  the  high 
seas,  and  offences  against  the  law  of  nations  ; 

31.  To  declare  war,  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal,  and  make 
rules  concerning  captures  on  land  and  water  ; 

12.  To  raise  and  support  armies,  but  no  appropriation  of  money  to 
that  use  shall  be  for  a  longer  term  than  two  years; 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES.  507 

13.  To  provide  and  maintain  a  navy; 

14.  To  make  rules  for  the  government  and  regulation  of  the  land  and 
naval  forces ; 

1">.  To  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the 
Union,  suppress  insurrections  and  repel  invasions; 

1C.  To  provide  for  organizing,  arming,  and  disciplining,  the  militia, 
and  for  governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be  employed  in  the  service 
of  the  United  States,  reserving  to  the  States  respectively,  the  appoint 
ment  of  the  officers,  and  the  authority  of  training  the  militia  according 
to  the  discipline  prescribed  by  Congress ; 

17.  To  exercise  exclusive  legislation  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  over 
such  district  (not  exceeding  ten  miles  square)  as  may,  by  cession  of  par 
ticular  States,  and  the  acceptance  of  Congress,  become  the  seat  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  and  to  exercise  like  authority  over  all 
places  purchased  by  the  consent  of  the  legislature  of  the  State  in  which 
the  same  shall  be,  for  the  erection  of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dock 
yards,  and  other  needful  buildings;  and 

18.  To  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carry 
ing  into  execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  other  powers  vested  by 
this  Constitution  in  the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  de 
partment  or  officer  thereof. 

SEC.  IX. — 1.  The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of 
the  States  now  existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohib 
ited  by  the  Congress  prior  to  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
eight,  but  a  tax  or  duty  may  be  imposed  on  such  importation,  not  ex 
ceeding  ten  dollars  for  each  person. 

2.  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended, 
unless  when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public  safety  may  re 
quire  it. 

3.  No  bill  of  attainder  or  ex  post  facto  law  shall  be  passed. 

4.  No  capitation,  or  other  direct,  tax  shall  be  laid,  unless  in  propor 
tion  to  the  census  or  enumeration  hereinbefore  directed  to  be  taken. 

5.  No  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported  from  any  State. 

6.  No  preference  shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  commerce  or 
revenue  to  the  ports  of  one  State  over  those  of  another;  nor  shall  ves 
sels  bound  to,  or  from,  one  State,  be  obliged  to  enter,  clear,  or  pay  duties 
in  another. 

7.  No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  treasury,  but  in  consequence  of 
appropriations  made  by  law  ;  and  a  regular  statement  and  account  of 
the  receipts  and  expenditures  of  all  public  money  shall  be  published 
from  time  to  time. 

8.  No  title  of  nobility  shall  be  granted  by  the  United  States  ;  and  no 
person  holding  any  office  of  profit  or  trust  under  them  shall,  without 


508  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED  STATES. 

the  consent  of  the  Congress,  accept  of  any  present,  emolument,  office,  or 
title,  of  any  kind  whatever,  from  any  king,  prince,  or  foreign  state. 

SEC.  X. — 1.  No  State  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confed 
eration  ;  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal ;  coin  money  ;  emit  bills 
of  credit ;  make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment 
of  debts ;  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex  post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing 
the  obligation  of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility. 

2.  No  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the  Congress,  lay  any  im 
posts  or  duties  on  imports  or  exports,  except  what  may  be  absolutely 
necessary  for  executing  its  inspection  laws ;  and  the  net  produce  of  all 
duties  and  imposts,  laid  by  any  State  on  imports  or  exports,  shall  be  for 
the  use  of  the  treasury  of  the  United  States ;  and  all  such  laws  shall  be 
subject  to  the  revision  and  control  of  the  Congress. 

3.  No  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the  Congress,  lay  any  duty  of 
tonnage,  keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of  peace,  enter  into  any 
agreement  or  compact  with  another  State,  or  with  a  foreign  power,  or 
engage  in  war,  unless  actually  invaded,  or  in  such  imminent  danger  as 
will  not  admit  of  delay. 

ARTICLE  II. 

SEC.  I. — 1.  The  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  President  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  lie  shall  hold  his  office  during  the  term  of 
four  years,  and,  together  with  the  Vice-President,  chosen  for  the  same 
term,  be  elected,  as  follows  : 

2.  Each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature  thereof 
may  direct,  a  number  of  electors,  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  senators 
and  representatives  to  which  the  State  may  be  entitled  in  the  Congress ; 
but  no  senator  or  representative,  or  person  holding  an  office  of  trust  or 
profit  under  the  United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  elector. 

3.  The  electors  shall  meet  in  their  respective  States,  and  vote  by 
ballot  for  two  persons,  of  whom  one  at  least  shall  not  be  an  inhabitant 
of  the  same  State  with  themselves.     And  they  shall  make  a  list  of  all 
the  persons  voted  for,  and  of  the  number  of  votes  for  each  ;  which  list 
"they  shall  sign  and  certify,  and  transmit  sealed  to  the  seat  of  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate. 
The  President  of  the  Senate   shall,  in  the   presence  of  the   Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then 
be  counted.     The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  shall  be 
the  President,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  elec 
tors  appointed  ;  and  if  there  be  more  than  one  who  have  such  majority, 
and  have  an  equal  number  of  votes,  then  the  House  of  Representatives 
shall  immediately  choose  by  ballot  one  of  them  for  President ;  and  if  no 
person  shall  have  a  majority,  then  from  the  five  highest  on  the  list  the 
said  House  shall  in  like  manner  choose  the  President.     But  in  choosing 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  5J1 

the  Supreme  Court  shall  have  appellate  jurisdiction,  both  as  to  law  and 
fact,  with  such  exceptions,  and  under  such  regulations  as  the  Congress 
shall  make. 

3.  The  trial  of  all  crimes,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment,  shall  be  by 
jury ;  and  such  trial  shall  be  held  in  the  State  where  the  said  crimes 
shall  have  been  committed ;  but  when  not  committed  within  any  State, 
the  trial  shall  be  at  such  place  or  places  as  the  Congress  may  by  law 
have  directed. 

SEC.  III. — 1.  Treason  against  the  United  States,  shall  consist  only  in 
levying  war  against  them,  or  in  adhering  to  their  enemies,  giving  them 
aid  and  comfort.  No  person  shall  be  convicted  of  treason  unless  on  the 
testimony  of  two  Avitnesses  to  the  same  overt  act,  or  on  confession  in  open 
court. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  declare  the  punishment  of  treason, 
but  no  attainder  of  treason  shall  work  corruption  of  blood,  or  forfeiture 
except  during  the  life  of  the  person  attainted. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

SEC.  I. — Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to  the  pub 
lic  acts,  records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  State.  And  the 
Congress  may  by  general  laws  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  such  acts, 
records,  and  proceedings  shall  be  proved,  and  the  effect  thereof. 

SEC.  II. — 1.  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  priv 
ileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States. 

2.  A  person  charged  in  any  State  with  treason,  felony,  or  other  crime, 
who  shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in  another  State,  shall  on  de 
mand  of  the  executive  authority  of  the  State  from  which  he  fled,  be 
delivered  up  to  be  removed  to  the  State   having  jurisdiction  of  the 
crime. 

3.  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regu 
lation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be 
delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may 
be  due. 

SEC.  III. — 1.  New  States  may  be  admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this 
Union  ;  but  no  new  State  shall  be  formed  or  erected  within  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  any  other  State ;  nor  any  State  be  formed  by  the  junction  of 
two  or  more  States,  or  parts  of  States,  without  the  consent  of  the  legis 
latures  of  the  States  concerned  as  well  as  of  the  Congress. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful 
rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  belonging 


512  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

to  the  United  States  ;  and  nothing  in  this  Constitution  shall  be  so  con 
strued  as  to  prejudice  any  claims  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  partic 
ular  State. 

SEC.  IV. — The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in  this 
Union  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them 
against  invasion;  and,  on  application  of  the  legislature,  or  of  the  execu 
tive  (when  the  legislature  cannot  be  convened),  against  domestic  vio 
lence. 

ARTICLE  V. 

The  Congress,  whenever  two-thirds  of  both  houses  shall  deem  it  neces 
sary,  shall  propose  amendments  to  this  Constitution,  or,  on  the  applica 
tion  of  the  legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  the  several  States,  shall  call  a 
convention  for  proposing  amendments,  which,  in  either  case,  shall  be 
valid  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  part  of  this  Constitution,  when  rati 
fied  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  several  States,  or  by  con 
ventions  in  three-fourths  thereof,  as  the  one  or  the  other  mode  of  ratifi- 
"  cation  may  be  proposed  by  the  Congress ;  provided  that  no  amendment 
which  may  be  made  prior  to  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
eight  shall  in  any  manner  affect  the  first  and  fourth  clauses  in  the  ninth 
section  of  the  first  article ;  and  that  no  State,  without  its  consent,  shall 
be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate. 


ARTICLE  VI. 

1.  All  debts  contracted  and  engagements  entered  into,  before  the  adop 
tion  of  this  Constitution,  shall  be  as  valid  against  the  United  States  under 
this  Constitution,  as  under  the  Confederation. 

2.  This  Constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States  which  shall  be 
made  in  pursuance  thereof;   and  all  treaties  made,  or  which  shall  be 
made,  under  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land  ;  and  the  judges  in  every  State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  any 
thing  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwith 
standing. 

3.  The  senators  and  representatives  before  mentioned,  and  the  mem 
bers  of  the  several  State  legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial  offi 
cers,  both  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  several  States,  shall  be  bound 
by  oath  or  affirmation,  to  support  this  Constitution  ;  but  no  religious  test 
shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under 
the  United  States. 

ARTICLE  VII. 

The  ratification  of  the  conventions  of  nine  States,  shall  be  sufficient  for 
the  establishment  of  this  Constitution  between  the  States  so  ratifying 
the  same. 


CONSTITUTION   OF   TPIE   UNITED   STATES. 


513 


Done  in  convention  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  States  present 
the  seventeenth  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  eighty -seven,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States  of  America  the  twelfth.  In.  witness  whereof,  we  have  hereunto 
subscribed  our  names. 

GEO.  WASHINGTON, 

President,  and  Deputy  from  Virginia. 


New  Hampshire. 

John  Langdon, 
Nicholas  Gilman. 

Massachusetts. 

Nathaniel  Gorham, 
Rufus  King. 

Connecticut. 

Wm.  Saml.  Johnson, 
Roger  Sherman. 

New  York. 
Alexander  Hamilton. 

New  Jersey. 

Wil.  Livingston, 
David  Brearley, 
Wm.  Paterson, 
Jona.  Dayton. 

Pennsylvania. 

B.  Franklin, 
Thomas  Mifllin, 
Robt.  Mori-is, 
Geo.  Clymer, 
Thos.  Fitzsimons, 
Jared  Ingersoll, 
James  Wilson, 
Gouv.  Morris. 


Delaware. 

Geo.  Read, 

Gunning  Bedford,  Jr., 
John  Dickinson, 
Richard  Bassett, 
Jaco.  Broom. 

Maryland. 

James  McHenry, 

I);m.  Jenifer,  of  St.  Thomas, 

Dan.  Carroll. 

Virginia. 

John  Blair, 
James  Madison,  Jr. 

North  Carolina. 

Wm.  Blount, 

Rich'd  Dobbs  Spaight, 

Hugh  Williamson. 

South  Carolina. 

J.  Rutledge, 
Charles  C.  Pinckney, 
Charles  Pinckney, 
Pierce  Butler. 

Georgia. 

William  Few, 
Abr.  Baldwin. 


Attest : 


WILLIAM  JACKSON, 

Secretary. 


The  following  named  delegates  from  the  States  indicated  were  present 


but  did  not  sign  the  Constitution  : 


Massachusetts. 

Elbridge  Gerry. 
Caleb  Strong. 


Connecticut. 
Oliver  Ellsworth. 


514  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

New  York.  Virginia. 

John  Lansing,  Jr.,  Edmund  Randolph, 

Robert  Yates.  George  Mason, 

George  Wythe, 
James  McClurg. 
New  Jersey. 

Wm.  C.  Houston.  North  Carolina. 

Alexander  Martin, 
Wm.  R.  Davie. 

Maryland. 

John  Francis  Mercer,  Georgia. 

Luther  Martin.  Wm.  Pierce, 

Wm.  Houston. 

Of  the  sixty-three  delegates  originally  appointed,  ten  did  not  attend, 
two  of  which  vacancies  were  filled.  Of  those  attending,  thirty-nine 
signed  and  sixteen  did  not. 

The  Constitution  was  adopted  by  the  Convention  on  the  17th  of  Sep 
tember,  1787,  appointed  in  pursuance  of  the  Resolution  of  the  Congress 
of  the  Confederation  of  the  21st  of  February,  1787,  and  ratified  by  the 
Conventions  of  the  several  States,  as  follows : 

Delaware,  December  7th,  1787,  unanimously. 
Pennsylvania,  December  12th,  1787,  by  a  vote  of  46  to  23. 
New  Jersey,  December  18th,  1787,  unanimously. 
Georgia,  January  2d,  1788,  unanimously. 
Connecticut,  January  9th,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  128  to  40. 
Massachusetts,  February  6th,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  187  to  168. 
Maryland,  April  28th,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  63  to  12. 
South  Carolina,  May  23d,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  149  to  73. 
New  Hampshire,  June  21st,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  57  to  47. 
Virginia,  June  25th,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  89  to  79. 
New  York,  July  26th,  1788,  by  a  vote  of  30  to  25. 
North  Carolina,  November  21st,  1789,  by  a  vote  of  193  to  75. 
Rhode  Island,  May  29th,  1790,  by  a  majority  of  2. 
Vermont,  January  10th,  1791,  by  a  vote  of  105  to  4. 

Declared  ratified  by  resolution  of  the  Congress,  September  13th,  1788. 

The  first  Congress  under  its  provisions  was  to  have  met  at  New  York, 
March  4th,  1789,  but  on  that  day  no  quorum  was  present  in  either 
house.  The  House  of  Representatives  organized  on  the  1st  of  April, 
and  the  Senate  secured  a  quorum  on  the  6th  of  April,  1789. 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  515 


AMENDMENTS  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION.* 

ARTICLE  I. 

Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion, 
or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  freedom  of 
speech,  or  of  the  press ;  or  the  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assem 
ble,  and  to  petition  the  government  for  a  redress  of  grievances. 

ARTICLE  II. 

A  well-regulated  militia,  being  necessary  to  the  security  of  a  free 
State,  the  right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms,  shall  not  be  in 
fringed. 

*  Twelve  Constitutional  amendments  were  proposed  by  the  first  Con 
gress,  at  its  first  session,  September  25th,  1789.  The  first  two  were 
rejected,  the  last  ten  were  adopted,  which  are  the  ten  first  printed  above, 
and  were  proclaimed  to  be  in  force  December  loth,  1791. 

The  two  rejected  Articles  were  as  follows : 

I.  After  the  first  enumeration  required  by  the  First   Article  of  the 
Constitution,  there  shall  be  one  Representative  for  every  30,000  persons, 
until  the  number  shall  amount  to  one  hundred  ;  after  which  the  propor 
tion  shall  be  so  regulated  by  Congress  that  there  shall  not  be  less  than  one 
hundred  Representatives,  or  one  for  every  40,000  persons,  until  the 
number  of  Representatives  shall  amount  to  two  hundred ;  after  which 
the  proportion  shall  be  so  regulated  by  Congress,  that  there  shall  be 
not  less  than  two  hundred  Representatives,  nor  more  than  one  Repre 
sentative  for  every  50,000  persons. 

II.  No  law  varying  the  compensation  for  the  services  of  the  Senators 
and  Representatives  shall  take  effect  until  an  election  of  Representatives 
shall  have  intervened. 

The  twelve  proposed  amendments  were  acted  upon  by  the  States  as 
follows : 

All  ratified  by  Vermont,  November  3d,  1791  ;  Maryland,  December 
19th,  1789;  New  Jersey,  November  20th,  1789;  North  Carolina,  De 
cember  22d,  1789;  South  Carolina,  January  19th,  1790;  Virginia  and 
Kentucky,  December  15th,  1791. — 7. 

All,  excepting  Article  I,  ratified  by  Delaware,  January  28th,  1790. — 1. 

All,  excepting  Article  II,  ratified  by  Pennsylvania,  March  10th, 
1790.— 1. 

All,  excepting  Articles  I,  and  II,  ratified  by  New  Hampshire,  Janu 
ary  25th,  1790;  New  York,  March  27th,  1790;  and  Rhode  Island,  June 
15th,  1790.— 3. 

All  rejected  by  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Georgia. — 3. 


516  CONSTITUTION   OF  THE   UNITED  STATES. 

ARTICLE  III. 

No  soldier  shall,  in  time  of  peace,  be  quartered  in  any  house,  without 
the  consent  of  the  owner,  nor  in  time  of  war,  but  in  a  manner  to  be  pre 
scribed  by  law. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers, 
and  effects,  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  vio 
lated,  and  no  warrants  shall  issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported 
by  oath  or  affirmation,  and  particularly  describing  the  place  to  be 
searched,  and  the  persons  or  things  to  be  seized. 

ARTICLE  V. 

No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital,  or  otherwise  infamous 
crime,  unless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except 
in  cases  arising  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia,  when  in 
actual  service  in  time  of  war  or  public  danger ;  nor  shall  any  person  be 
subject  for  the  same  offence  to  be  twice  put  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb ; 
nor  shall  be  compelled  in  any  criminal  case  to  be  a  witness  against 
himself;  nor  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  pro 
cess  of  law ;  nor  shall  private  property  be  taken  for  public  use,  without 
just  compensation. 

ARTICLE  VI. 

In  all  criminal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a 
speedy  and  public  trial,  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district 
wherein  the  crime  shall  have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have 
been  previously  ascertained  by  law,  and  to  be  informed  of  the  nature 
and  cause  of  the  accusation  ;  to  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against 
him ;  to  have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in  his  favor, 
and  to  have  the  assistance  of  counsel  for  his  defence. 

ARTICLE  VII. 

In  suits  at  common  law,  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed 
twenty  dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved,  and  no  fact 
tried  by  a  jury  shall  be  otherwise  re-examined  in  any  court  of  the 
United  States,  than  according  to  the  rules  of  the  common  law. 

ARTICLE  VIII. 

Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required,  nor  excessive  fines  imposed,  nor 
cruel  and  unusual  punishments  inflicted. 

ARTICLE  IX. 

The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution,  of  certain  rights,  shall  not  be 
construed  to  deny  or  disparage  others  retained  by  the  people. 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  517 

ARTICLE  X. 

The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution, 
nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respec 
tively,  or  to  the  people. 

ARTICLE  XI. 

[Proposed  by  Congress  March  5th,  1794,  and  declared  in  force  Janu 
ary  8th,  1798.] 

The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  not  be  construed  to  ex 
tend  to  any  suit  in  law  or  equity,  commenced  or  prosecuted  against  one 
of  the  United  States  by  citizens  of  another  State,  or  by  citizens  or  sub 
jects  of  any  foreign  state. 

ARTICLE  XII. 

[Proposed  December  12th,  1803,  in  the  first  session  of  the  8th  Con 
gress,  and  declared  in  force  September  25th,  1804.] 

The  electors  shall  meet  in  their  respective  States,  and  vote  by  ballot 
for  President  and  Vice-President,  one  of  whom,  at  least,  shall  not  be  an 
inhabitant  of  the  same  State  with  themselves ;  they  shall  name  in  their 
ballots  the  person  voted  for  as  President,  and  in  distinct  ballots  the  per 
son  voted  for  as  Vice-President,  and  they  shall  make  distinct  lists  of  all 
persons  voted  for  as  President,  and  of  all  persons  voted  for  as  Vice- 
President,  and  of  the  number  of  votes  for  each,  which  lists  they  shall 
sign  and  certify,  and  transmit  sealed  to  the  seaj  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate; — the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates  and  the  votes  shall  then  be 
counted  ; — the  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  for  President, 
shall  be  the  President,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  num 
ber  of  electors  appointed;  and  if  no  person  have  such  majority,  then 
from  the  persons  having  the  highest  numbers  not  exceeding  three  on 
the  list  of  those  voted  for  as  President,  the  House  of  Representatives 
shall  choose  immediately,  by  ballot,  the  President.  But  in  choosing 
the  President,  the  votes  shall  be  taken  by  States,  the  representation  from 
each  State  having  one  vote ;  a  quorum  for  this  purpose  shall  consist  of 
a  member  or  members  from  two-thirds  of  the  States,  and  a  majority  of 
all  the  States  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  And  if  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  shall  not  choose  a  President  whenever  the  right  of  choice 
shall  devolve  upon  them,  before  the  fourth  day  of  March  next  following, 
then  the  Vice-President  shall  act  as  President,  as  in  the  case  of  the  death 
or  other  constitutional  disability  of  the  President.  The  person  having 
the  greatest  number  of  votes  as  Vice-President,  shall  be  the  Vice-Pres 
ident,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors 
appointed,  and  if  »o  person  have  a  majority,  then  from  the  two  highest 
numbers  on  the  list  the  Senate  shall  choose  the  Vice-President;  a  quo 
rum  for  the  purpose  shall  consist  of  two-thirds  of  the  whole  number  of 


518  CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

Senators,  and  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  shall  be  necessary  to  a 
choice.  But  no  person  constitutionally  ineligible  to  the  office  of  Presi 
dent  shall  be  eligible  to  that  of  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 

ARTICLE  XIII. 

[Proposed  by  Congress  February  1st,  1865,  and  declared  in  force 
December  18th,  1865. 

Ratified  by  Arkansas,  California,  Connecticut,  Florida,  Georgia,  Illi 
nois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Louisiana,  Maine,  Maryland,  Massachu 
setts,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  Missouri,  Nevada,  New  Hampshire,  New 
Jersey,  New  York,  North  Carolina,  Ohio,  Oregon,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode 
Island,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Vermont,  Virginia,  West  Virginia, 
and  Wisconsin — 32  States  out  of  36.  Ratified  conditionally  by  Ala 
bama  and  Mississippi.  Rejected  by  Delaware  and  Kentucky — 2.  Not 
acted  upon  by  Texas.] 

SEC.  1.  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a  pun 
ishment  for  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted, 
shall  exist  within  the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to  their  juris 
diction. 

SEC.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  Article  by  appro 
priate  legislation. 

ARTICLE  XIV. 

[Proposed  by  Congress  June  16th,  1866,  and  declared  in  force  July 
28th,  1868. 

Ratified  by  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Connecticut,  Florida,  Georgia,  Illi 
nois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Louisiana,  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Michi 
gan,  Minnesota,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  Nevada,  New  Hamp 
shire,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  North  Carolina,  Ohio,  Oregon,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Rhode  Island,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Vermont,  Vir 
ginia,  West  Virginia,  and  Wisconsin — 33  States  out  of  37. 

Of  the  above,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi, 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Texas,  and  Virginia  (9)  first  rejected 
the  amendment,  but  finally  ratified  it.  New  Jersey  and  Ohio  (2)  re 
scinded  their  ratification. 

Rejected  by  Delaware,  Kentucky,  and  Maryland — 3. 

No  final  action  was  taken  by  California — 1.] 

SEC.  1.  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  sub 
ject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and 
of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any 
law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizens  of  the 
United  States  ;  nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty, 
or  property,  without  due  process  of  law  ;  nor  deny  to  any  person  within 
its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws. 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  519 

SEC.  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several 
States  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole  num 
ber  of  persons  in  each  State,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed.  But  when 
the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of  electors  for  President 
and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  representatives  in  Congress, 
the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of  a  State,  or  the  members  of  the  leg 
islature  thereof,  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State, 
being  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  in 
any  way  abridged,  except  for  participation  in  rebellion,  or  other  crime, 
the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion 
which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number 
of  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State. 

SEC.  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  or  Representative  in  Congress, 
or  elector  of  President  and  Vice-President,  or  hold  any  office,  civil  or 
military,  under  the  United  States,  or  under  any  State,  who,  having  pre 
viously  taken  an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress,  or  as  an  officer  of  the 
United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any  State  legislature,  or  as  an  execu 
tive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insurrection  or  rebellion  against 
the  same,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof.  But  Congress 
may,  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  eacli  house,  remove  such  disability. 

SEC.  4.  The  validity  of  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States,  author 
ized  by  law,  including  debts  incurred  for  payment  of  pensions  and  boun 
ties  for  services  in  suppressing  insurrection  or  rebellion,  shall  not  be 
questioned.  But  neither  the  United  States  nor  any  State  shall  assume 
or  pay  any  debt  or  obligation  incurred  in  aid  of  insurrection  or  rebel 
lion  against  the  United  States,  or  any  claim  for  the  loss  or  emancipa 
tion  of  any  slave ;  but  all  such  debts,  obligations,  and  claims  shall  be 
held  illegal  and  void. 

SEC.  5.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce,  by  appropriate  leg 
islation,  the  provisions  of  this  Article. 

ARTICLE  XV. 

[Proposed  by  Congress  February  26th,  1869,  and  declared  in  force 
March  30th,  1870. 

Ratified  by  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Connecticut,  Florida,  Georgia,  Illi 
nois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Louisiana,  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Mich 
igan,  Minnesota,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  Nevada,  New  Hamp 
shire,  New  York,  North  Carolina,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island, 
South  Carolina,  Texas,  Vermont,  Virginia,  West  Virginia,  and  Wiscon 
sin — 30  States  out  of  37. 

Of  the  above,  Georgia  and  Ohio  at  first  rejected  but  finally  ratified. 
New  York  rescinded  its  ratification. 

Rejected  by  California,  Delaware,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  New  Jersey, 
and  Oregon — 6. 

No  final  action  was  taken  by  Tennessee — 1.] 


520 


ELECTORAL   VOTE   BY  STATES. 


SEC.  1.  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be 
denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States  or  by  any  State  on  account  of 
race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

SEC.  2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  Article  by  ap 
propriate  legislation. 

NOTE. — Another  proposed  amendment,  styled  Article  XIII,  was  pro 
posed  by  Congress  to  the  State  legislatures  at  the  second  session  of  the 
36th  Congress,  March  2d,  1861 : 

"ART.  XIII. — No  amendment  shall  be  made  to  the  Constitution 
which  will  authorize  or  give  to  Congress  the  power  to  abolish  or  inter 
fere  within  any  State  with  the  domestic  institutions  thereof,  including 
that  of  persons  held  to  labor  or  service  by  the  laws  of  said  State." 

It  was  not  acted  upon  by  a  majority  of  the  States. 


B.— ELECTORAL  VOTE  BY  STATES  FOR  PRESI 
DENT  AND  VICE-PRESIDENT,  1789-1801. 


ELECTORAL  VOTE  OF  1789.* 

o 

be  _. 

11 

£ 

o  ~ 

•y  'p 

cock, 
uselts. 

"S  c 

a" 

o    . 

«  ^ 

1, 

o    . 

ft 

1  ^> 

» 

*7^  •—     ^5  —     ^!  )*H       —  '  —  i 

-*--    c- 

—  ~ 

—  ^ 

—  o 

•~  i-,~    E  U" 

i~^  —  -     Lj    C^ 

pj 

STATES.  f 

>  -~ 

fl!'.B»r« 

^^ 

3I 

yrE 

^  ^ 

15  ^a 

.2  |  ?| 

p 

§ 

0)^ 

^=^  ^^  ;S^ 

5  3 

~  — 

0 

"3O 

£«« 

1^ 

^ 

1 

0 

0 

PH 

^0 

o 

50 

1° 

Wo 

s 

1 

Connecticut. 

7 

5 

2 

7 

Delaware. 

3 

8 

3 

3 

Georgia. 

5 

2 

1 

1 

1 

5 

4 

Maryland. 

G 

6 

2 

8 

5 

Massachusetts. 

10 

10 

10 

6 

N.  Hampshire. 

5 

5 

5 

7 

New  Jersey. 

6 

1 

5 

G 

8 

Pennsylvania. 

10 

8 

'2 

10 

g 

South  Carolina. 

7 

6 

1 

7 

10 

Virginia. 

10 

5 

1 

1 

3 

12 

Total, 

G9      34 

9 

G 

G 

4 

3 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

4 

73 

*  From  1789  to  the  election  of  1804  the  Electors  voted  for  President  and  Vice- 

President  on  the  same  ballot,  the  one  receiving  the  highest  number  of  votes  being 

President. 

t  New  York,  North  Carolina,  and  Rhode  Island  did  not  vote,  the  New  York 

legislature    having  failed  to  agree  on  the  mode  of  choosing  electors,  and  North 
Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  not  having  ratified  the  Constitution  in  time  to  take 

part  in  the  election. 

ELECTORAL   VOTE   BY   STATES. 


521 


ELECTORAL  VOTE  OF  1792. 

a 

0 

tn 

o" 

~^c  -4 

™""S 

I-a 

0?    _j- 

Cr^ 

•~  -2 

rt   3 

~  >° 

s^'a 

=  ,3 

3 

p 

STATES. 

l'g> 

<1 

^ 

HS  'Ec 

w 

5 
p 

'rt 

"""£ 

o  | 

fe 

K> 

g  J 

w 

H 

^"o 

'oS 

2* 

§3 

<§«« 

> 

o 

1-9 

o  ° 

0 

O 

"o 

H 

Connecticut, 

9 

9 

9 

Delaware. 

3 

3 

3 

Georgia. 

4 

4 

4 

Kentucky. 

4 

4 

4 

Maryland. 

8 

8 

2 

10 

Massachusetts. 

10 

1G 

16 

New  Hampshire. 

6 

6 

6 

New  Jersey. 

7 

7 

7 

New  York. 

12 

12 

12 

North  Carolina. 

12 

12 

12 

Pennsylvania. 

15 

14 

1 

15 

Rhode  Island. 

4 

4 

4 

South  Carolina. 

8 

7 

1 

8 

Vermont, 

3 

3 

1 

4 

Virginia. 

21 

21 

21 

Total, 

132 

77 

50 

4 

1 

3 

135 

ELECTORAL  VOTE  OF  179G. 


Connecticut. 
Delaware. 
Georgia. 
Kentucky. 
Maryland. 
Massachusetts. 
N.  Hampshire. 
New  Jeisey. 
New  York. 
N.  Carolina. 
Pennsylvania. 
Rhode"  Island. 
8  Carolina. 
Tennessee. 
Vermont, 
Virginia. 


1   . 

cS 

a 
o 

c^'i        d 

0-* 

•^'    —  "^ 

"tc  __• 

>^' 

.5  ^.5 

jS^H     _£'^     "5    s 

!=.= 

;;    C 

illl 

,_• 

I     3 


Total,     71  I  68      59      30      15      11 


I  138 


VOL.  I.— 44 


522 


ELECTORAL   VOTE   BY  STATES. 


ELECTORAL  VOTE  OF  1800. 

ta 

o 

,» 

fc^a 

STATES. 

as  Jeffers 
Virginia. 

=  k.° 

11 

n  Adams 
ssachuset 

Pinckne 
th  Caroli 

ll 

c  £ 

1 

J* 

wfc 

*s 

3s  ^ 

dg 
o^ 

0 

H 

0 

0 

1 
2 

Connecticut. 
Delaware. 

9 
3 

9 
3 

9 

3 

3 

Georgia. 

4 

4 

4 

4 

Kentucky. 

4 

4 

4 

5 

Maryland. 

5 

5 

5 

5 

10 

6 

Massachusetts. 

16 

16 

.16 

7 

New  Hampshire. 

6 

6 

6 

8 

New  Jersey. 

7 

7 

7 

9 

New  York. 

12 

12 

12 

10 

North  Carolina. 

8 

8 

4 

4 

12 

11 
12 

Pennsylvania. 
Rhode  Island. 

8 

8 

7 
4 

7 
3 

1 

15 
4 

13 

South  Carolina. 

8 

8 

8 

14 

Tennessee. 

3 

3 

3 

15 

Vermont. 

4 

4 

4 

16 

Virginia. 

21 

21 

21 

Total, 

73 

73 

65 

64 

1 

138 

The  vote  for  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Aaron  Burr  being  equal,  there  was  no  choice 
for  President  by  the  Electoral  votes.  On  the  llth  February,  1801,  the  House  of 
Representatives  proceeded  to  the  election  of  a  President.  On  the  first  ballot  eight 
States  voted  for  Jefferson,  six  for  Burr,  and  the  votes  of  two  were  divided.  Ballot 
ing  continued  without  a  choice  until  February  17th,  1801,  when  on  the  36th  ballot 
ten  States  voted  for  Jefferson,  four  for  Burr,  and  two  in  blank.  Thomas  Jefferson 
was  thus  elected  President  and  Aaron  Burr  Vice-President. 


LENGTH   OF   SESSIONS   OF   CONGRESS. 


523 


-LENQTH  OF  SESSIONS  OF  CONGRESS, 
1789-1801. 


No.  of 
Congress. 

No.  of 
Sesssion. 

TIME  OF  SESSION. 

1st. 

(1st. 
^2d. 
(3d. 

March  4th,  1789—  September  29th,  1789. 
January  4th,  1790—  August  12th,  1790. 
December  Gth,  1790—  March  3d,  1791. 

2d. 

fist. 
t2d. 

October  24th,  1791—  May  8th,  1792. 
November  5th,  1792—  March  2d,  1793. 

3d. 

fist. 
|2d. 

December  2d,  1793—  June  9th,  1794. 
November  3d,  1794—  March  3d,  1795. 

4th. 

fist. 
(ad. 

December  7th,  1795—  June  1st,  1796. 
December  5th,  1796—  March  3d,  1797. 

5th. 

fist. 
^2d. 
(3d. 

May  15th,  1797—  July  10th,  1797. 
November  13th,  1797—  July  16th,  1798. 
December  3d,  1798—  March  3d,  1799. 

6th. 

fist. 
J2d. 

December  2d,  1799—  Mav  14th,  1800. 
November  17th,  1800—  March  3d,  1801. 

The  first  two  sessions  of  the  first  Congress  were  held  at  New  York.  From  the 
third  session  of  the  first  Congress  to  the  first  session  of  the  sixth  Congress  the  ses 
sions  were  hehl  in  Philadelphia,  the  temporary  capital.  The  second  session  of  the 
sixth  Congress  was  held  at  Washington,  the  permanent  capital. 


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